I opened up the new book I'm reading by Michael Lewis called "The Big Short" and felt the opening quote before the prologue was so appropriate; not only for what the book is about to discuss (the few contrarians who bucked Wall Street's conventional wisdom and shorted the real estate derivative markets to make billions,) but also to the personality characteristics of certain people we all deal with on a daily basis who think because they are considered experts, they know, without question, the answer. Legends in their own minds.
"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
--Leo Tolstoy, 1897
No comments:
Post a Comment