The difference between banks and the Mafia: banks have better legal-regulatory expertise, but the Mafia understands public opinion. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

But promoting philosophical skepticism is not quite the mission of this book. If awareness of the Black Swan problem can lead us into withdrawal and extreme skepticism, I take here the exact opposite direction. I am interested in deeds and true empiricism. So, this book was not written by a Sufi mystic, or even by a skeptic in the ancient or medieval sense, or even (we will see) in a philosophical sense, but by a practitioner whose principal aim is not to be a sucker in things that matter, period.

You will never fully convince someone that he is wrong; only reality can.

It is the appearance of inconsistency, and not its absence, that makes people attractive.