Nassim Nicholas Taleb quotes - page 2

Remember that you are a Black Swan. (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)
Love without sacrifice is like theft. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
He who has never sinned is less reliable than he who has only sinned once. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Categorizing is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness of boundaries, let alone revising their categories. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
But it remains the case that you know what is wrong with a lot more confidence than you know what is right. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
In science you need to understand the world; in business you need others to misunderstand it. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
It takes extraordinary wisdom and self-control to accept that many things have a logic we do not understand that is smarter than our own. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Restaurants get you in with food to sell you liquor; religions get you in with belief to sell you rules. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Much of the research into humans' risk-avoidance machinery shows that it is antiquated and unfit for the modern world; it is made to counter repeatable attacks and learn from specifics. If someone narrowly escapes being eaten by a tiger in a certain cave, then he learns to avoid that cave. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
It's harder to say no when you really mean it. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
What they call "play” (gym, travel, sports) looks like work. (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)
Injecting some confusion stabilizes the system. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
We didn't get where we are thanks to the sissy notion of resilience. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
We should reward people, not ridicule them, for thinking the impossible. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The best test of whether someone is extremely stupid (or extremely wise) is whether financial and political news makes sense to him. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
When we want to do something while unconsciously certain to fail, we seek advice so we can blame someone else for the failure. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Modernity widened the distance between the sensational and the relevant. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
For the classics philosophical insight was the product of a life of leisure; for me a life of leisure is the product of philosophical insight. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A competitive athlete is painful to look at; trying hard to become an animal rather than a man, he will never be as fast as a cheetah or as strong as an ox. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
It is often the mistakes of others that benefit the rest of us-and, sadly, not them ... For the antifragile, harm from errors should be less than the benefits. (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)
You want to be yourself, idiosyncratic; the collective (school, rules, jobs, technology) wants you generic to the point of castration. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The fool generalizes the particular; the nerd particularizes the general; ... the wise does neither. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Forecasting by bureaucrats tends to be used for anxiety relief rather than for adequate policy making. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Much of modern life is preventable chronic stress injury. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb