# The Bed of Procrustes

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes/9780141969244

JSON version (same data): https://www.bookquiver.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes/9780141969244.json

![The Bed of Procrustes](https://quivercdn.com/covers/penguin/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes_978-01-4196-924-4.jpg?v=2026-04-24%2003%3A04%3A42)

- Book: [The Bed of Procrustes](https://www.bookquiver.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes) ([The Bed of Procrustes.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes.md))
- Authors: [Nassim Nicholas Taleb](https://www.bookquiver.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb)
- Publisher: Penguin
- Medium: ebook
- ISBN: 978-01-4196-924-4
- Published: 2010-12-02
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: E-book

## Description

In this profound and playful book, Nassim Nicholas Taleb presents his ideas about life in the form of aphorisms, the world's earliest - and most memorable - literary form. Procrustes was a character from Greek mythology who abducted travellers and invited them to spend the night in a special bed, which they had to fit to perfection. They never did. Those who were too tall had their legs chopped off; those who were too short were stretched. Every aphorism here is about a Procrustean bed of sorts - we humans, facing the limits of our knowledge, the unseen and the unknown, resolve the tension by squeezing life and the world into crisp commoditized ideas, reductive categories, specific vocabularies and pre-packaged narratives. Only by embracing the unexpected - and accepting what we don't know - can we see the world as it really is.