T-Bone Walker

“We tend to use knowledge as therapy.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“The hope that fuels the pursuit of endless economic growth – that billions of consumers in India & China will one day enjoy the lifestyles of Europeans and Americans – is as absurd & dangerous a fantasy as anything dreamt up by Al-Qaeda. It condemns the global environment to early destruction & looks set to create reservoirs of nihilistic rage & disappointment among hundreds of millions of have-nots – the bitter outcome of the universal triumph of Western Modernity, which turns the revenge of the East into something darkly ambiguous, and all its victories truly Pyrrhic.”
― Pankaj Mishra, From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia

“You may never know what type of person someone is unless they are given opportunities to violate moral or ethical codes.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

“Since leaving Kocho, I had begged for death, I had willed Salman to kill me or asked God to let me die or refused to eat or drink in the hopes I would fade away. I had thought many times that the man who raped and beat me would kill me. But death had never come. In the checkpoint bathroom, I began to cry. For the first time since I left Kocho, I thought I actually might die. And I also knew for sure that I didn't want to.”
― Nadia Murad, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State