Alireza Dourbash > Alireza's Quotes

“HISTORY AND THE TRIPLET OF OPACITY
History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, the generator of history. There is a fundamental incompleteness in your grasp of such events, since you do not see what's inside the box, how the mechanisms work. What I call the generator of historical events is different from the events themselves, much as the minds of the gods cannot be read just by witnessing their deeds. You are very likely to be fooled about their intentions.
This disconnect is similar to the difference between the food you see on the table at the restaurant and the process you can observe in the kitchen. (The last time I brunched at a certain Chinese restaurant on Canal Street in downtown Manhattan, I saw a rat coming out of the kitchen.)
The human mind suffers from three ailments as it comes into contact with history, what I call the triplet of opacity. They are:
a. the illusion of understanding, or how everyone thinks he knows what is going on in a world that is more complicated (or random) than they realize;
b. the retrospective distortion, or how we can assess matters only after the fact, as if they were in a rearview mirror (history seems clearer and more organized in history books than in empirical reality);
and
c. the overvaluation of factual information and the handicap of authoritative and learned people, particularly when they create categories—when they "Platonify.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“لحظه ی دیدار نزدیک است
باز من دیوانه ام ، مستم
باز می لرزد ، دلم ، دستم
باز گویی در جهان دیگری هستم
های ! نخراشی به غفلت گونه ام را ، تیغ
های ، نپریشی صفای زلفکم را ، دست
و آبرویم را نریزی ، دل
ای نخورده مست
لحظه ی دیدار نزدیک است”
― مهدی اخوان ثالث / Mehdi Akhavan Sales

“Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.”
― Arthur Miller

“Just remember, kid, you can quicker get back a million dollars that was stole than a word that you gave away.”
― Arthur Miller, A View from the Bridge: A Play in Two Acts

“The two most common elements in the world are hydrogen and stupidity.”
― Arthur Miller