“Decomposition, for most, starts when they leave the free, social, and uncorrupted college life for the solitary confinement of professions and nuclear families.”

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 41

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Decomposition, for most, starts when they leave the free, social, and uncorrupted college life for the solitary confine…" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb?

Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo

Nassim Nicholas Taleb196

Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former t… 1960

Related quotes

“For those who know the value of and exquisite taste of solitary freedom (for one is only free when alone), the act of leaving is the bravest and most beautiful of all.”

Isabelle Eberhardt (1877–1904) Swiss explorer and author

Source: The Nomad: The Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt

“We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.”

Tennessee Williams Orpheus Descending

Val ( Act 2, Scene 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=oOhF2S_tsIoC&q=%22We're+all+of+us+sentenced+to+solitary+confinement+inside+our+own+skins+for+life%22&pg=PA33#v=onepage) <br class="br">Orpheus Descending (1957)

“While there are practical and sometimes moral reasons for the decomposition of the family, it coincides neither with what most people in society say they desire nor, especially in the case of children, with their best interests.”

Robert N. Bellah (1927–2013) American sociologist

The Good Society, ch. 1 (1991)

“Transferring the receptor from a social worm to a solitary worm makes the solitary worm social.”

Eric R. Kandel (1929) American neuropsychiatrist

In Search of Memory (2006)
Context: Cori Bargmann... has studied two variants of C. elegans... The only difference between the two is one amino acid in an otherwise shared receptor protein. Transferring the receptor from a social worm to a solitary worm makes the solitary worm social.

“I started about five years ago when I did a hospital visit and was shocked at what a huge difference the [Starlight Children's Foundation] makes for not only these children but also their families, who are also affected. I consider family one of the most important aspects of life, because at the end of the day your family is who is always going to be there for you. When it comes to these children, their family is all they have because some of them never get to leave the hospital.”

Corbin Bleu (1989) American actor, model, dancer, producer, and singer-songwriter

As quoted in "Corbin Bleu aids Starlight charity" in Variety (3 December 2009) http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118012141.html?categoryId=3834&cs=1

“Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the daily life of most humans ran its course within three ancient frames: the nuclear family, the extended family and the local intimate community.* Most people worked in the family business – the family farm or the family workshop, for example – or they worked in their neighbours’ family businesses. The family was also the welfare system, the health system, the education system, the construction industry, the trade union, the pension fund, the insurance company, the radio, the television, the newspapers, the bank and even the police.”

Yuval Noah Harari book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family — but to a solitary and an exile his friends are everything.”

Willa Cather book Shadows on the Rock

Shadows on the Rock (1931), Book III, Ch. 5

“It cannot be too clearly understood that this is not a free country, and it will be an evil day for the legal profession when it is.”

A. P. Herbert book Uncommon Law

"Is It a Free Country?"
Uncommon Law (1935)

“Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.”

V.S. Naipaul (1932–2018) Trinidadian-British writer of Indo-Nepalese ancestry

“By preventing a free market in education, a handful of social engineers, backed by the industries that profit from compulsory schooling—teacher colleges, textbook publishers, materials suppliers, and others—have ensured that most of our children will not have an education, even though they may be thoroughly schooled.”

John Taylor Gatto book Dumbing Us Down

Source: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (1992), p. 85

Related topics