“ Robert Rubin, a former Secretary of the United States Treasury, one of those who sign their names on the banknote you just used to pay for coffee, collected more than $120 million in compensation from… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ People who are bred, selected, and compensated to find complicated solutions do not have an incentive to implement simplified ones. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Only the autodidacts are free. And not just in school matters—those who decommoditize, detouristify their lives. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Memory is more of a self-serving dynamic revision machine: you remember the last time you remembered the event, and without realizing it, . Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Learning is rooted in repetition and convexity, meaning that the reading of a single text twice is more profitable than reading two different things once. 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
“ Consider the iatrogenics of newspapers. They need to fill their pages every day with a set of news items—particularly those news items also dealt with by other newspapers. But to do things right, they… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Alas, it has been hard for me to fit these ideas about fragility and antifragility within the current U.S. political discourse—that beastly two-fossil system. Most of the time, the Democratic side of… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ These traders lose money frequently, but in small amounts, and make money rarely, but in large amounts. I call them crisis hunters. I am happy to be one of them. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ There are designations, like economist, prostitute, or consultant, for which additional characterization doesn’t add information. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ The theory is the child of the cure, not the opposite—ex cura theoria nascitur. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ The Black Swan asymmetry allows you to be confident about what is wrong, not about what you believe is right. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Sometimes people ask you a question with their eyes begging you to not tell them the truth. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
