Nobody reads the disclosures that roll down your computer screen. You click 'I agree' but you don't know what you're agreeing to.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status - but rarely for your wisdom.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People often admire superficial traits like success and wealth, but genuine wisdom is seldom envied.
This quote by Nassim Nicholas Taleb highlights the tendency of individuals to envy externally visible attributes such as success, wealth, intelligence, and status, while overlooking the deeper and more intrinsic quality of wisdom. Wisdom, unlike tangible achievements, is not as easily recognized or appreciated, suggesting that society places greater value on what is visible rather than what is truly meaningful.
Themes
EnvyWisdomSuccessIntelligenceWealth
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about valuing inner qualities over superficial success.
More from Nassim Nicholas Taleb
All quotes βFragility is the quality of things that are vulnerable to volatility.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Those who were unlucky in life in spite of their skills would eventually rise. The lucky fool might have benefited from some luck in life; over the longer run he would slowly converge to the state of a less-lucky idiot. Each one would revert to his long-term properties.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Individuals should think about the worst-case scenarios and plan for them. The world will be crazier than you think it will be. Put money away, and then you can live with much more freedom.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Similar quotes
Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.
Swami VivekanandaRead
We complain today that ministers do not know how to preach; but is it not equally true that our congregations do not know how to hear?
J. I. PackerRead
He who has made it a practice to lie and deceive his father, will be the most daring in deceiving others.
HoraceRead
Look at him now, poor fellow. That's what a dose of reality does for you...Never touch the stuff myself, you understand. Find it gets in the way of the hallucinations.
Alan MooreRead
In any moment, no matter how lost we feel, we can take refuge in presence and love. We need only pause, breathe, and open to the experience of aliveness within us. In that wakeful openness, we come home to the peace and freedom of our natural awareness.
Tara BrachRead
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view.
Oliver GoldsmithRead