Diether

“We favor the sensational and the extremely visible. This affects the way we judge heroes. There is little room in our consciousness for heroes who do not deliver visible results—or those heroes who focus on process rather than results.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“The ideals of homo faber, the fabricator of the world, which are permanence, stability, and durability, have been sacrificed to abundance, the ideal of the animal laborans.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

“Humans will believe anything you say provided you do not exhibit the smallest shadow of diffidence; like animals, they can detect the smallest crack in your confidence before you express it. The trick is to be as smooth as possible in personal manners. It is much easier to signal self-confidence if you are exceedingly polite and friendly; you can control people without having to offend their sensitivity.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“You can only cruse the boulevards of regret so far, and then you've got to get back up onto the freeway again.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice