“ It happens that uncertainty, disorder, and the unknown are completely equivalent in their effect: antifragile systems benefit (to some degree) from, and the fragile is penalized by, almost all of them… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Indeed, Georges Simenon, one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, only wrote sixty days a year, with three hundred days spent doing nothing. He published more than two hundred novels… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Indeed we rarely look at religion’s benefits in limiting the intervention bias and its iatrogenics: in a large set of circumstances (marginal disease), anything that takes you away from the doctor and… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ In fact their strength, as with over-specialized athletes, is the result of a deformity. I thought it was the same with people who were selected for trying to get high grades in a small number of subj… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ In a textbook case of naive empiricism, the author also looked for traits these millionaires had in common and figured out that they shared a taste for risk taking. Clearly risk taking is necessary fo… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ If you take risks and face your fate with dignity, there is nothing you can do that makes you small. If you don't take risks, there is nothing you can do that makes you grand. Nothing. And when you ta… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ If you survive until tomorrow, it could mean that either a) you are more likely to be immortal or b) that you are closer to death. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ If you selected one hundred independent-minded journalists capable of seeing factors in isolation from one another, you would get one hundred different opinions. But the process of having these people… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ If my brain can tell the difference between noise and signal, my heart cannot. Such Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ I mentioned earlier that to understand successes and analyze what caused them, we need to study the traits present in failures. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ I have called this mental defect the Lucretius problem, after the Latin poetic philosopher who wrote that the fool believes that the tallest mountain in the world will be equal to the tallest one he h… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ I have always hated employment and the associated dependence on someone else’s arbitrary opinion, particularly when much of what’s done inside large corporations violates my sense of ethics. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ I had a strong bias in favor of Russian scientists; many can be put to active use as chess coaches (I also got a piano teacher out of the process). In addition, they are extremely helpful in the inter… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ I don’t particularly care about the usual. If you want to get an idea of a friend’s temperament, ethics, and personal elegance, you need to look at him under the tests of severe circumstances, not und… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ I discovered that I had been intuitively using the less-is-more idea as an aid in decision making (contrary to the method of putting a series of pros and cons side by side on a computer screen). For i… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ I did not feel ill, Symmache; now I do (after your ministrations). (Non habui febrem, Symmache, nunc habeo). Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ I am used to facing, at the end of a conference lecture, the question So what is the difference between robust and antifragile? or the more unenlightened and even more irritating Antifragile is resili… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Hunger (or episodic energy deficit) strengthens the body and the immune system and helps rejuvenate brain cells, weaken cancer cells , and prevent diabetes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Huet presents arguments against causality that are quite potent—he states, for instance, that any event can have an infinity of possible causes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ He provides the example of a philosopher who puzzles about the reality of time, but who nonetheless applies for a research grant to work on the philosophical problem of time during next year’s sabbati… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
