Procrustean Bed. Philosophical and Everyday Aphorisms

According to ancient Greek myth, Procrustes was a cruel robber: he lured travelers into his domain, treated them to dinner, and then offered them to spend the night on an unusual bed. He wanted the guest's height to exactly match the size of the bed. Those who were too tall he would amputate their legs, and those who were too short he would stretch. Procrustes was killed by the Athenian hero Theseus, who beheaded him on that very infamous bed. The concept of 'Procrustean bed' has become a catchphrase and means the rigid frameworks into which someone tries to forcibly fit desires, thoughts, or beliefs.

The collection of aphorisms by Nassim Taleb received this title not by chance: 'Each aphorism in this book is about one or another Procrustean bed: about how we, humans, encounter the limitations of our own knowledge, the unseen and the unknown, what we cannot or do not want to observe, and as a result, relieve the tension that arises by cramming life and the universe into too rigid frameworks of ready-to-use ideas, into simplified categories, specialized terminology, and pre-packaged stories, which can indeed lead to catastrophic consequences.'

This is not just a book of aphorisms for every day, but a living philosophy book about the randomness and fragility of our beliefs. This engaging philosophy naturally continues the line of the author's bestsellers. In 'Fooled by Randomness,' he taught to see the hidden role of luck, in 'The Black Swan' – to accept the unpredictable, in 'Antifragile' – to turn chaos into an advantage, and here he exposes the traps of thinking: this is a concentrated book of wisdom where the precision of formulations is more important than volume.

It will suit those who appreciate aphorisms and quotes, collect their own book of aphorisms, and seek texts that can be referred to daily: this is a non-fiction book for those interested in books on philosophy and psychology, as well as self-development books. For those who are already familiar with Taleb's ideas and want to receive them in a maximally condensed and precise form – and for those who are just beginning to get acquainted with his intellectual style.