Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

Reality is far more vicious than Russian roulette. First, it delivers the fatal bullet rather infrequently, like a revolver that would have hundreds, even thousands of chambers instead of six. After a few dozen tries, one forgets about the existence of a bullet, under a numbing false sense of security. Second, unlike a well-defined precise game like Russian roulette, where the risks are visible to anyone capable of multiplying and dividing by six, one does not observe the barrel of reality. One is capable of unwittingly playing Russian roulette - and calling it by some alternative “low risk” game.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

You cannot do anything with knowledge unless you know where it stops, and the costs of using it.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The curious mind embraces science; the gifted and sensitive, the arts; the practical, business; the leftover becomes an economist

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market alow you to put there.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A prophet is not someone who first had an idea. He is the one to first believe in it and take it to its conclusion.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

There is a saying that bad traders divorce their spouse sooner than abandon their positions. Loyalty to ideas is not a good thing for traders, scientists - or anyone.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Meditation is a way to be narcissistic without hurting anyone

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Just as no monkey is as good-looking as the ugliest of humans, no academic is worthier than the worst of the creators

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

If the past, by bringing surprises, did not resemble the past previous to it (what I call the past's past), then why should our future resemble our current past?

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

What I learned on my own I still remember

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The imagination of the genius vastly surpasses his intellect, the intellect of the academic vastly surpasses his imagination

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In the past, only some of the males, but all of the females, were able to procreate. Equality is more natural for females.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Someone with a low degree of epistemic arrogance is not too visible, like a shy person at a cocktail party. We are not predisposed to respect humble people, those who try to suspend judgement. Now contemplate epistemic humility. Think of someone heavily introspective, tortured by the awareness of his own ignorance. He lacks the courage of the idiot, yet has the rare guts to say I don't know. He does not mind looking like a fool or, worse, an ignoramus. He hesitates, he will not commit, and he agonizes over the consequences of being wrong. He introspects, introspects, and introspects until he reaches physical and nervous exhaustion.This does not necessarily mean he lacks confidence, only that he holds his own knowledge to be suspect. I will call such a person an epistemocrat; the province where the laws are structured with this kind of human fallibility in mind I will can an epistemocracy.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The next time someone pesters you with unneeded advice, gently remind him of the fate of the monk whom Ivan the Terrible put to death for delivering uninvited (and moralizing) advice. It works as a short-term cure.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

When you beat up someone physically, you get excercise and stress relief; when you assault him verbally on the Internet, you just harm yourself.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

It took us a while to discover that we do effectively think, but that we more readily narrate backward in order to give ourselves the illusion of understanding, and give a cover to our past actions.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A theory is like medicine (or government): often useless, sometimes necessary, always self-serving, and on occasion lethal. So it needs to be used with care, moderation and close adult supervision.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In poor countries, officials receive explicit bribes; in D.C. they get the sophisticated, implicit, unspoken promise to work for large corporations

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society; the empiricist and imbecile-proof one, or even better, a rationalist-proof one.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

true humility is when you can surprise yourself more than others, the rest is either shyness or good marketing

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Why do we keep focusing on the minutiae, not the possible significant large events, in spite of the obvious evidence of their huge influence?

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

English does not distinguish between arrogant-up (irreverence toward the temporarily powerful) and arrogant-down (directed at the small guy).

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status - but rarely for your wisdom.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The classical man's worst fear was inglorious death, the modern man's worst fear is just death

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The opposite of manliness isn’t cowardice, it’s technology.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Love without sacrifice is like theft

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

What organized dating sites fail to understand is that the people are far more interesting in what they don't say about themselves.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The problem is that our ideas are sticky: once we produce a theory, we are not likely to change our minds....

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Under opacity and in the newfound complexity of the world, people can hide risks and hurt others, with the law incapable of catching them. Iatrogenics has both delayed and invisible consequences. It is hard to see causal links, to fully understand what’s going on.Under such epistemic limitations, skin in the game is the only true mitigator of fragility.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Being self-owned is a state of mind.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The author cites researcher David Howard's idea of post-traumatic growth. Howard contends that some individuals faced with a traumatic event actually develop new strength.

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love; close enough on the surface but, to the nonsucker, not exactly the same thing

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb