“The tragedy of virtue is that the more obvious, boring, unoriginal, and sermonizing the proverb, the harder it is to implement.”

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

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 65

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 "The tragedy of virtue is that the more obvious, boring, unoriginal, and sermonizing the proverb, the harder it is to im…" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb?

Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo

Nassim Nicholas Taleb 196

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

Related quotes

“Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (1976)

“Virtue is admirable, but boring.”

John Twelve Hawks American writer

Fourth Realm Trilogy (2005-2009), The Traveler (2005)

“Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 70
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Context: Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.

“People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“Gerald: I suppose society is wonderfully delightful?
Lord Illingworth: To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it simply a tragedy.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Act III
A Woman of No Importance (1893)

“When I was at the World Bank, it would often be said in the face of obvious failure that our strategy was correct, it just wasn't implemented well.”

Joseph E. Stiglitz book Making Globalization Work

§2, p. 52
Making globalization work (2006)

“Tragedies are all right for a while: you are concerned, you are curious, you feel good. And then it gets repetitive, it doesn't advance, it grows dreadfully boring: it is so very boring, even for me.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Source: The Woman Destroyed

“The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line. The objection to it is not that it is predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in sense.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Baltimore Evening Sun (9 August 1926)
1920s
Source: A Mencken Chrestomathy

“Actually, it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into the suicide debate and made every window, kitchen implement, and subway station a rehearsal for tragedy.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted

“You can’t pay for tragedy with more tragedy, or draw life from death.” “I”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Related topics