《智慧与魔咒》
这是本格言体裁书，名气不如作者纳西姆·尼古拉斯·塔勒布其他畅销作品（比如《黑天鹅》、《非对称风险》等），但几乎每一条都很精辟，读来也许能让你会心一笑。
作者在序中介绍“何为普罗克拉斯提斯之床”这样解释道：
在希腊神话中，雅典和举行神秘仪式的艾留西斯城之间有一个叫作阿提卡克雷达勒斯的地方，普罗克拉斯提斯（他原名达玛斯忒斯，又名普罗珀蒙，普罗克拉斯提斯是他的绰号，意思是“把人拉长的人”）是这里一个小城邦的主人。他招待客人的方式非常独特：他引诱旅客进门，为他们提供丰盛的大餐，然后邀请他们在一张非常特别的床上过夜。他要求客人的身高与床的长度必须一丝不差。如果客人个子太高，他就用锋利的斧子把他们的腿截短；如果客人个子太矮，他就把他们的身体拉长。
·····
——在遇到我们不了解、不清楚的东西时，我们的解决办法是对自己的人生观和世界观进行“拉伸”或者“压缩”，迫使它们符合世俗的、预设的、人为制定的观念、门类和套路。我们似乎意识不到这种削足适履的做法，就好像裁缝为了让自己做的衣服刚好符合顾客的身材，而拉长或者截短他们的手脚。
这些格言看似并没有明确的主题，但实际上围绕着同一个中心思想，用作者的话说就是：“在面对我们不了解的东西时，我们是怎样应对的，又应该怎样应对。”
To understand the liberating effect of asceticism, consider that losing you’re your fortune is much less painful than losing only half of it.
(要理解禁欲主义给予人的自由，只要想想看：失去全部财富的痛苦远比失去一半财富要轻。)
Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love; close enough on the surface but, to the nonsucker, not exactly the same thing.
(学术与知识的关系，就像卖淫与爱情的关系一样：表面上看似乎很接近，但在旁观者看来，其实并不是一回事。)
Modernity's double punishment is to make us both age prematurely and live longer.
(现代社会给我们的双重惩罚是，既让我们衰老得更早，又让我们活得更长。)
Your brain is most intelligent when you don't instruct it on what to do something people who take showers discover on occasion.
(你脑子最聪明的时候，是你不告诉它该做什么的时候——人们偶尔会在洗澡时发现这一点。)
If your anger decreases with time, you did injustice; if it increases, you suffered injustice.
(如果你的愤怒随着时间逐渐消散，说明你对别人做了不公平的事；如果它随着时间逐渐增加，说明别人对你做了不公平的事。)
Work destroys your soul by stealthily invading your brain during the hours not officially spent working; be selective about professions.
(工作会摧毁你的灵魂，它在你“不工作”的时候偷偷侵入你的脑海；所以一定要慎重选择职业。)
In nature we never repeat the same motion; in captivity (office, gym, commute, sports), life is just repetitive stress injury. No randomness.
(在自然状态下，我们永远不会重复同样的事情；在受到禁锢的状态下（办公室、健身房、上下班路上、体育运动），生活只不过是重复性的疲劳损伤而已，没有任何随机性可言。)
Don’t talk about “progress” in terms of longevity, safety, or comfort before comparing zoo animals to those in the wilderness.
(不要用长寿、安全和舒适度的提高来衡量社会的进步，动物园里的动物较野生动物而言也是这样的。)
If you know, in the morning, what your day looks like with any precision, you are a little bit dead——the more precision, the more dead you are.
(要是你早晨起床时，就能预测这一天会是什么样子，那你已经开始靠近死亡了——预测得越准确，你离死亡就越近。)
There is no intermediate state between ice and water but there is one between life and death: employment.
(冰与水之间并没有中间状态，但是生与死之间确实有中间状态：雇佣状态。)
Procrastination is the soul rebelling against entrapment.
(拖延是灵魂对羁绊的抗争。)
Nobody wants to be perfectly transparent;not to others, certainly not to himself.
(没人愿意被一眼看透，无论是被别人，还是被自己。)
When we want to do something while unconsciously certain to fail, we seek advice so we can blame someone else for the failure.
(当我们打算做一件我们潜意识里知道注定要失败的事情时，就会征询别人的建议，这样就可以把失败怪罪到别人头上。)
Your reputation is harmed the most by what you say to defend it.
(对你名誉损害最大的是你为了维护它而说的话。)
The only objective definition of aging is when a person starts to talk about aging.
(当一个人开始谈论衰老的时候，他就真的老了。)
Most of what they call humility is successfully disguised arrogance.
(所谓的“谦逊”，其实通常都是掩饰得比较成功的傲慢。)
I wonder whether a bitter enemy would be jealous if he discovered that I hated someone else.
(假如我的某个死敌发现我恨的是另一个人，我在想他会不会感到嫉妒。)
The characteristic feature of the loser is to be moan, in general terms, mankind’s flaws, biases, contradictions, and irrationality——without exploiting them for fun and profit.
(失败者的特点是会抱怨人类的缺陷、偏见、自相矛盾和缺乏理智，但又不利用这些东西追求自己的欢乐和利益。)
The test of whether you really liked a book is if you reread it (and how many times); the test of whether you really liked someone’s company is if you are ready to meet him again and again——the rest is spin, or that variety of sentiment now called self-esteem.
(你是否真的喜欢一本书，判断标准是你是否会重读它（以及重读了多少遍）；你是否真的喜欢一个人的陪伴，判断标准是你是否愿意再次遇见他——剩下的都是空话，或者是所谓“自尊”。)
Hatred is much harder to fake than love. You hear of fake love; never of fake hate.
(恨远比爱难以伪造。你听说过虚假的爱，但还没听说过虚假的恨。)
We call narcissistic those individuals who behave as if they were the central residents of the world; those who do exactly the same in a set of two we call lovers.
We call narcissistic those individuals who behave as if they were the central residents of the world; those who do exactly the same in a set of two we call lovers.
(那些把自己当作世界中心的人，我们称为自恋者；那些把自己和另一个人当作世界中心的人，我们称为恋人。)
人性的弱点如此，这注定是场不公平的较量，尽管如此，但请不要让工业垃圾占领你的脑子。
Most people fear being without audiovisual stimulation because they are too repetitive when they think and imagine things on their own.
(绝大多数人害怕失去视听刺激，因为当他们自己思考和想象时，总是在重复同样的内容。)
Wisdom in the young is as unattractive as frivolity in the elderly.
(年轻人的智慧跟老人的轻佻一样不讨人喜欢。)
Some people are only funny when they try to be serious.
(有些人只有在试图表现得严肃的时候才显得滑稽。)
话虽如此，何其难哉。
You exist if and only if you are free to do things without a visible objective, with no justification and, above all, outside the dictatorship of someone else’s narrative.
(只有当你可以自由地做任何事情，不需要明显的目的、理由和别人的要求时，你才算真正存在于这世上。)
The book is the only medium left that hasn’t been corrupted by the profane: everything else on your eyelids manipulates you with an ad.
(还没有被凡俗沾染的媒介就只剩下书籍了，你看到的其他媒介都试图通过广告来操控你。)
The opposite of success isn’t failure, it is namedropping.
(成功的对立面不是失败，而是把成功人士的名字时时挂在嘴边炫耀。)
Older people are most beautiful when they have what is lacking in the young: poise,erudition, wisdom, phronesis and this post-heroic absence of agitation.
(年长的人最美丽的时候，是他们拥有了年轻人缺乏的东西的时候：雍容、博学、智慧、经验以及波澜不惊的平静。)
Decline starts with the replacement of dreams with memories and ends with the replacement of memories with other memories.
(衰老一开始是用记忆替换梦想，到最后是用记忆替换别的记忆。)
Read nothing from the past 100 years; eat no fruits from the past 1 000 years; drink nothing from the past 4 000 years (just wine and water); but talk to no ordinary man over 40. A man without a heroic bent starts dying at the age of 30.
(不要读最近100年写的书，不要吃最近1000年培植的水果，不要喝最近4000年发明的饮料（只喝水和红酒就够了），不要跟40岁以上的普通人说话。普通人从30岁就开始衰老死亡了。)
Some pursuits are much duller from the inside. Even piracy, they say.
(有些职业在外人看来很有意思，其实很无聊。他们说，就连海盗也是这样。)
Catholic countries had more serial monogamy than today, but without the need for divorce——life expectancy was short;marriage duration was much, much shorter.
(在过去，天主教国家同样实行一夫一妻制，但是人们用不着考虑离婚——那时人们的寿命比今天人们的寿命短，那时婚姻的寿命比今天婚姻的寿命长。)
Someone who says “I am busy” is either declaring incompetence (and lack of control of his life) or trying to get rid of you.
(如果有人跟你说“我很忙”，那他要么是在宣称自己的无能（以及对自己的生活缺乏控制），要么是在试图摆脱你。)
The difference between slaves in Roman and Ottoman days and today’s employees is that slaves did not need to flatter their boss.
(罗马时代的奴隶与今天的雇员之间唯一的不同，就是奴隶用不着奉承主人。)
For most, success is the harmful passage from the camp of the hating to the camp of the hated.
(对于绝大多数人，成功就是从憎恨别人的阵营转换到被憎恨的阵营。)
The difference between love and happiness is that those who talk about love tend to be in love, but those who talk about happiness tend to be not happy.
(爱和幸福的区别在于，谈论爱的人通常正处于爱河之中，谈论幸福的人通常并不幸福。)
Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur.
(现代化就是创造出没有英雄主义的年轻人，没有智慧的老人以及没有光彩的生活。)
Preoccupation with efficacy is the main obstacle to a poetic, noble, elegant, robust and heroic life.
(对效率的追求是阻止我们过上充满诗意的、高贵的、优雅的、富有活力的、英雄主义的生活的主要原因。)
人们在盒子间永不停歇地来回穿梭，从宏观上看，现代化城市何尝不是一种流水线。
They are born then put in a box, they go home to live in a box, they study by ticking boxes, they go to what is called “work” in a box, where they sit in their cubicle box, they drive to the grocery store in a box to buy food in a box; they go to the gym in a box to sit in a box; they talk about thinking “outside the box” and when they die they are put in a box. All boxes, Euclidian, geometrically smooth boxes.
(他们生下来被放在盒子里，回到家住在盒子里，学习时勾选一个个的盒子，乘着盒子去上班，工作时坐在盒子里，开着盒子去超市买装在盒子里的食物，乘着盒子去健身房，谈论思维里的“条条框框”死后被放在盒子里。这些都是符合欧几里得定义的、四四方方的、表面平滑的盒子。)
Rumors are only valuable when they are denied.
(谣言只有被否认的时候才有价值。)
真人秀一点也不真，减肥餐根本减不了肥。
Social media are severely antisocial,health foods are empirically unhealthy,knowledge workers are very ignorant, and social sciences aren’t scientific at all.
(社交媒体严重反社会，健康食品非常不健康，知识工作者极度缺乏知识，社会科学根本就不是科学。)
The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates and a monthly salary.
让人上瘾的东西里，害处最大的三种是海洛因、碳水化合物和月薪。
If you need to listen to music while walking, don’t walk; and please don’t listen to music.
如果你走路时非得听音乐，那就不要走路，也不要听音乐。
Men destroy each other during war; themselves during peacetime.
(人们在战争中彼此摧毁，在和平时自己摧毁自己。)
Technology can degrade (and endanger) every aspect of a sucker’s life while convincing him that it is becoming more “efficient”.
(科技可以让愚人的生活在所有方面发生退化（甚至陷入危机），同时又让他相信自己的生活正在变得“更有效率”。)
You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits.
(只有当你在任何领域都不跟任何人攀比时，你才算拥有真正的生活。)
Decomposition, for most, starts when they leave the free, social and uncorrupted college life for the solitary confinement of professions and nuclear families.
(绝大多数人开始腐化的时候，是离开自由、热闹、纯净的校园，开始孤单地陷于职业生涯和小家庭中的时候。)
Every social association that is not face to face is injurious to your health.
(任何不是面对面进行的社交活动都会损害健康。)
Writing is the art of repeating oneself without anyone noticing.
(写作就是重复自己的话又不让别人发现的艺术。)
Critics may appear to blame the author for not writing the book they wanted to read; but in truth they are blaming him for writing the book they wanted, but were unable, to write.
(作家让人记住的是他们最好的作品，政治家让人记住的是他们最糟糕的错误，商人几乎从来不会让人记住。)
You need to keep reminding yourself of the obvious: charm lies in the unsaid, the unwritten and the undisplayed. It takes mastery to control silence.
(你得随时提醒自己，魅力存在于没有说出来、没有写下来、没有展示出来的东西中。把握沉默需要境界。)
Some books cannot be summarized (real literature, poetry), some can be compressed to about ten pages; the majority to zero pages.
(有些书的内容没法总结（真正的文学和诗歌），有些书可以被压缩成大约10页；大多数书都可以直接压缩成零页。)
The exponential information age is like a verbally incontinent person: he talks more and more as fewer and fewer people listen.
(信息指数级增长的时代，就像一个说话不能自制的人：他嘟囔得越多，听他说话的人越少。)
We unwittingly amplify commonalities with friends, dissimilarities with strangers and contrasts with enemies.
(我们会不自觉地放大自己与朋友的相同之处，与陌生人的不同之处，与敌人的相反之处。)
If you find any reason why you and someone are friends, you are not friends.
(要是你需要理由来解释为什么你跟某人是朋友，那你们就不算是朋友。)
You may outlive your strength, never your wisdom.
(你或许会因为年老而失去力量，但不会失去智慧。)
升米恩，斗米仇。
There are those who will thank you for what you gave them and others who will blame you for what you did not give them.
(有些人会为了你给予他们的而感激你，有些人会为了你没有给予他们而怪罪你。)
Someone from your social class who becomes poor affects you more than thousands of starving ones outside of it.
(如果你所在的社会阶层有一个人变穷了，会比别的社会阶层里成千上万的穷人更让你受到触动。)
To become a philosopher, start by walking very slowly.
(要成为一位哲学家，首先走路要非常慢。)
Mediocre men tend to be outraged by small insults but passive, subdued and silent in front of very large ones.
(普通人往往会被小的冒犯激怒，却在大的冒犯面前保持沉默，无动于衷。)
A verbal threat is the most authentic certificate of impotence.
(口头威胁是能力不足的最好证明。)
You know you have influence when people start noticing your absence more than the presence of others.
(当人们注意你的缺席胜过别人的在场时，你就知道自己的影响力了。)
You are guaranteed a repetition when you hear the declaration “never again”.
(如果有人宣称“永不再做”某件事情，那他肯定会再做一次。)
Some reticent people use silence to conceal their intelligence; but most do so to hide the lack of it.
(有些沉默寡言的人之所以沉默，是为了掩藏自己的智慧；但绝大多数都是为了掩藏自己缺乏智慧的事实。)
At any stage, humans can thirst for money, knowledge, or love; sometimes for two, never for three.
(在任何时候，人们都会渴望金钱、知识或者爱；有时一个人可以同时渴望其中的两样，但永远不可能同时渴望这三样。)