You will be civilized on the day you can spend a long period doing nothing, learning nothing, and improving nothing, without feeling the slightest amount of guilt.

An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist or consultant the opposite.

My biggest problem with modernity may lie in the growing separation of the ethical and the legal

It was obvious that their profits were simply cash borrowed from destiny with some random payback time.

I don't read the papers; I stopped reading the papers. I read the papers only during periods of crisis, and I think papers are too long on a regular day and too short days when we have a crisis.

The bonus for bankers fragilizes the system. Someone has the upside at the expense of others.

If I ask you to write down the last 4 digits of your social security number, and then take you out to lunch and ask you how many dentists there are in Manhattan, there's going to be a high correlation between those two numbers. What happens is that the number psychologically makes you feel confident.