Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Nassim Nicholas Talebis a Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader, and risk analyst, whose work focuses on problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty. His 2007 book The Black Swan was described in a review by the Sunday Times as one of the twelve most influential books since World War II...
NationalityLebanese
ProfessionScientist
CountryLebanon
Nassim Nicholas Taleb quotes about
taken play decision
My point taken further is that True and False (hence what we call "belief") play a poor, secondary role in human decisions; it is the payoff from the True and the False that dominates-and it is almost always asymmetric, with one consequence much bigger than the other, i.e., harboring positive and negative asymmetries (fragile or antifragile). Let me explain.
matter imperfect foolish
Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.
government worry risk
The government-sponsored institution Fannie Mae, when I look at its risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry: their large staff of scientists deemed these events "unlikely."
littles looks feels
If I could predict what my day would exactly look like, I would feel a little bit dead.
perfect aim
Don't aim to be perfect! Aim to be antifragile
way rich poor
The fastest way to become rich is to socialize with the poor; the fastest way to become poor is to socialize with the rich.
weakness
It is a sign of weakness to avoid showing signs of weakness.
ignorance knowledge limits
Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut, and don't ask an academic if what he does is relevant.
ignorance knowledge information
Information is bad for knowledge.
arrogance fool pseudo
There is a certain category of fool-the overeducated, the academic, the journalist, the newspaper reader, the mechanistic scientist, the pseudo-empiricist, those endowed with what I call epistemic arrogance, this wonderful ability to discount what they did not see, the unobserved.
errors made plenty
He who has never sinned is less reliable than he who has only sinned once. And someone who has made plenty of errors-though never the same error more than once-is more reliable than someone who has never made any.
two errors investing
Life is a tightrope between two errors: generalizing the wrong particular and particularizing the wrong general.
political suffering imbeciles
The only valid political system is one that can handle an imbecile in power without suffering from it
certificates threat impotence
A verbal threat is the most authentic certificate of impotence.