“ By creating bureaucracies, we put civil servants in a position to make decisions based on abstract and theoretical matters, with the illusion that they will be making them in a rational, accountable w… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Bounded rationality: we cannot possibly measure and assess everything as if we were a computer; we therefore produce, under evolutionary pressures, some shortcuts and distortions. Our knowledge of the… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ A saying from Steve Jobs: People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there ar… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ You need a story to displace a story. Metaphors and stories are far more potent (alas) than ideas; they are also easier to remember and more fun to read. If I have to go after what I call the narrativ… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ You know you have influence when people start noticing your absence more than the presence of others. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ You can tell how poor someone feels by the number of times he references money in his conversation. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire. Likewise with randomness, uncertainty, chaos: you want to use them, not hide from them. You want to be the fire and wish for the wind. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Where simplifications fail, causing the most damage, is when something nonlinear is simplified with the linear as a substitute. That is the most common Procrustean bed. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Whenever your survival is in play, don’t immediately look for causes and effects. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ When you develop your opinions on the basis of weak evidence, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts these opinions, even if this new information is obviously mo… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ What they call play (gym, travel, sports) looks like work; the harder they try, the more captive they are. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ What does fitness mean? Being exactly tuned to a given past history of a specific environment, or extrapolating to an environment with stressors of higher intensity? Many seem to point to the first ki… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ We, members of the human variety of primates, have a hunger for rules because we need to reduce the dimension of matters so they can get into our heads. Or, rather, sadly, so we can squeeze them into… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ We favor the sensational and the extremely visible. This affects the way we judge heroes. There is little room in our consciousness for heroes who do not deliver visible results—or those heroes who fo… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ We are faulty and there is no need to bother trying to correct our flaws. We are so defective and so mismatched to our environment that we can just work around these flaws. I Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ War could cause a rise in oil prices, but not scheduled war—since prices adjust to expectations. It has to be in the price, as he said. Indeed, on the news of war, oil collapsed from around $39 a barr… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Those who use foul language on social networks (such as Twitter) are sending an expensive signal that they are free—and, ironically, competent. You don’t signal competence if you don’t take risks for… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ This nationality business helps you make a great story and satisfies your hunger for ascription of causes. It seems to be the dump site where all explanations go until one can ferret out a more obviou… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ This lack of translation is a mental handicap that comes with being a human; and we will only start to attain wisdom or rationality when we make an effort to overcome and break through it. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
