“ What I was given to study in school I have forgotten; what I decided to read on my own, I still remember. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ We have evidence that collectively society doesn’t advance with organized education, rather the reverse: the level of (formal) education in a country is the result of wealth. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ We are effectively not skilled at intuitively gauging the impact of the improbable, such Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Those who are very good at predicting the past will think of themselves as good at predicting the future, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ The simpler and more obvious the discovery, the less equipped we are to figure it out by complicated methods. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ The best horses lose when they compete with slower ones, and win against better rivals. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ That in the midst of murders and civil wars, our republic became stronger [and] its citizens infused with virtues.… A little bit of agitation gives resources to souls and what makes the species prospe… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Studying courage in textbooks doesn’t make you any more courageous than eating cow meat makes you bovine. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Sobs (sanglots). Some days I enter poetic melancholic states, what the Portuguese call saudade or the Turks hüzün (from the Arabic word for sadness). Other days I am more aggressive, have more energy—… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Research on happiness shows that those who live under a self-imposed pressure to be optimal in their enjoyment of things suffer a measure of distress. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Reality does not have the same closed and symmetric laws and regulations as games. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Often an action’s positive consequences benefit only its author, since they are visible, while the negative consequences, being invisible, apply to others, with a net cost to society. Consider Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Newspapers do not have to have a screaming headline saying that nothing new is taking place (though the Bible was smart enough to declare ein chadash tachat hashemesh— nothing new under the sun, provi… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Naïve empiricism, we have a natural tendency to look for instances that confirm our story and our vision of the world—these instances are always easy to find. Alas, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Narrated Black Swans, those that are present in the current discourse and that you are likely to hear about on television, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ It is not so easy to falsify, i.e., to state that something is wrong with full certainty. Imperfections Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Gravest of all manifestations of silent evidence, the illusion of stability. The Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Gene plays a role, are quite tractable, but anything entailing higher dimensionality falls apart. Understanding the genetic makeup of a unit will never allow us to understand the behavior of the unit… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ For Mother Nature, opinions and predictions don’t count; surviving is what matters. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
