The problem with opulence: the more you pay for a service (meal, hotel, airplane ticket), the more dissatisfied you will be with the smallest imperfection, the slightest error.

Compare constipated old Park Avenue couples riding first class, for whom traveling is some kind of exercise in bitterness, to partying passengers in the back of the plane for whom any beer is “good enough”. It is as if life wanted to get even with them.

Which leads to the paradox that the only way to properly enjoy wealth is to avoid spending it.

via The problem with opulence: the more you pay for… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Muscles without strength, friendship without trust, opinion without risk, change without aesthetics, age without values, food without nourishment, power without fairness, facts without rigor, degrees without erudition, militarism without fortitude, progress without civilization, complication without depth, fluency without content; these are the sins to remember.

[Added: Religion without tolerance.]

(courtesy Cyrus P. , Ban K.)

via Timeline Photos – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.