He who lives by the aphorism

He who lives by the aphorism ends up dying by it.

"When someone makes a statement that this in the financial markets should happen every ten thousand years, visibly they are not making a statement based on empirical evidence, or computation of the odds, but based on what? On some model, some theory. Do you ever regard how worrisome it is, when someone makes a statement like that, ``it should happen every ten thousand years'' particularly when the person is not even two thousand years old?" - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"In the past, most were ignorant, one in a thousand were refined enough to talk to. Today, literacy is higher, but thanks to progress, the media, and finance, only one in ten thousand." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb (from his book of aphorisms, ``The Bed of Procustes'')

"Do you ever regard how worrisome it is, when someone makes a statement like that, ``one in ten thousand people are refined enough to talk to'' when the person probably has attempted to have ``refined'' conversations with not even two thousand people?" - Me