Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The problem with democracy is that it's based on the idea that everyone's opinion is equally valid.

Never trust a politician.

The best way to get rich is to avoid getting poor.

The more you try to be unique, the more you become like everyone else.

The only thing worse than a fool is a smart fool.

The more you try to please everyone, the more you please no one.

Beware of people who always agree with you.

The more you try to be rational, the more irrational you become.

Never trust a man who wears a tie.

If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry.

My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves and the quality of their knowledge too seriously.

Never take investment advice from someone who has to work for a living.

If you have more than one reason to do something (choose a doctor or veterinarian, hire a gardener or an employee, marry a person, go on a trip), just don't do it. Obvious decisions (robust to error) require no more than a single reason.

Some people are only funny when they try to be serious.

I wonder if anyone ever measured the time it takes, at a party, before a mildly successful stranger who went to Harvard makes others aware of it.

If you lie to me, keep lying; don't hurt me by suddenly telling the truth.

A good book gets better on the second reading. A great book on the third. Any book not worth rereading isn't worth reading.

People are much less interested in what you are trying to show them than in what you are trying to hide.

A BS detection heuristic would be to use education in reverse: hire, conditional on an equal set of skills, the person with the least label-oriented education. In addition, people who didn't go to Harvard are easier to deal with in real life.

I am, at the Fed level, libertarian; at the state level, Republican; at the local level, Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist. If that saying doesn't convince you of the fatuousness of left vs. right labels, nothing will.