What matters isn't what a person has or doesn't have; it is what he or she is afraid of losing. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Further, being fooled by randomness is that in most circumstances fraught with a high degree of randomness, one cannot really tell if a successful person has skills, or if a person with skills will succeed — but we can pretty much predict the negative, that a person totally devoid of skills will eventually fail.

Your duty is to scream those truths that one should shout but that are merely whispered.

Never hire an academic unless his function is to partake of the rituals of writing papers or taking exams.