“ Should we go into people’s inner and private thoughts and motivations, we would see that their wishes and hopes are almost invariably at someone else’s expense. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Seneca and stoicism as a back door to explain why everything antifragile has to have more upside than downside Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Science isn't the sum of what scientists think, but exactly as with markets. Had science operated by majority consensus, we would be still stuck in the Middle Ages. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Randomness can be of considerable help with the matter. For there is another, far more entertaining way to make the distinction between the babbler and the thinker. You can sometimes replicate somethi… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Prediction requires knowing about technologies that will be discovered in the future. But that very knowledge would almost automatically allow us to start developing those technologies right away. Erg… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ People with too much smoke and complicated tricks and methods in their brains start missing elementary, very elementary things. Persons in the real world can’t afford to miss these things; otherwise t… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Paris itself was barely controlled by France—no more than the Rio slums called favelas are currently ruled by the Brazilian central state. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ One general, Fabius Maximus was nicknamed Cunctator, the Procrastinator. He drove Hannibal, who had an obvious military superiority, crazy by avoiding and delaying engagement. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Never ask the doctor what you should do. Ask him what he would do if he were in your place. You would be surprised at the difference. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Many claim that caloric restriction (permanent or episodic) activates healthy reactions and switches that, among other benefits, lengthen life expectancy in laboratory animals. We humans live too long… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Humans will believe anything you say provided you do not exhibit the smallest shadow of diffidence; like animals, they can detect the smallest crack in your confidence before you express it. The trick… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Hormesis was well known by the ancients (and like the color blue was known but not expressed). But it was only in 1888 that it was first scientifically described (though still not given a name) by a G… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, the generator of history. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ First ethical rule: If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud. Just as being nice to the arrogant is no better than being arrogant toward the nice, being accommodating toward anyone commi… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ A complex system, contrary to what people believe, does not require complicated systems and regulations and intricate policies. The simpler, the better. Complications lead to multiplicative chains of… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ إن التصنيف حاجة ضرورية بالنسبة للبشر ، لكنه يصبح حالة مرَضية عندما يجري النظر إلى الفئة المصنفة نظرة تقريرية قاطعة ، الأمر الذي يمنع الناس من التفكير في ضبابية الحدود الموضوعة بين الناس والمجتمعات ، خ… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Why did we build something so fragile to these types of events? Not seeing a tsunami or an economic event coming is excusable; building something fragile to them is not. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ There is something in nature you don’t understand, odds are it makes sense in a deeper way that is beyond your understanding. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
