Latest Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Anything that provides you with very, very stable income, very stable conditions, maybe generally stable, that often, it masks real risks, risks of blow-ups.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Real, Blow, Risk

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Comfort makes you weaker. We need some variability, some stressors. Not too much, but just enough.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Comfort, Needs, Too Much

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Never, never, never think - that's one lesson you should have in life. Never think that lack of variability is stability.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Thinking, Should Have, Lessons

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Bankers, they're not harmed by their mistakes. They benefit when things go right, and the society pays the price.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Mistake, Pay The Price, Bankers

  Source: www.pbs.org

• The bonus for bankers fragilizes the system. Someone has the upside at the expense of others.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Bankers, Bonus, Expenses

  Source: www.pbs.org

• A system, artificially stabilized, and of course you have hidden risks under the surface, and you don't know where the risks are.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Risk, Surface, Courses

  Source: www.pbs.org

• You want to favor systems that benefit from error, disorder, variability and things like that. You want to favor these systems and unfortunately, when - there's something I call the Soviet Illusion. The more the government becomes intrusive, the more things have to follow a script, and it can't handle this kind of system.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Errors, Government, Benefits

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Political life loves some volatility.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Love Life, Political, Volatility

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Switzerland is the perfect place where you have volatility at a municipal level that nothing up top - small units competing with each other.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Perfect, Switzerland, Levels

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Make sure that you are in a situation where the constant mistakes are small and can be used for something.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Mistake, Used, Situation

  Source: www.pbs.org

• As countries get rich they start increasing education and the very educated people tend to not like trial and error, because they think they're obligated to use the body of knowledge they have.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Country, Thinking, Errors

  Source: www.pbs.org

• You want failures to be small and informational. Silicon Valley does very well. It knows how to use failure as a tool for improvement.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Doe, Valleys, Tools

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Failure saves lives. In the airline industry, every time a plane crashes the probability of the next crash is lowered by that.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Next, Crash, Save A Life

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Is the economy something organic or is it something engineered? I think it's closer to the organic. You harm it by artificially suppressing volatility in it.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Thinking, Economy, Harm

  Source: www.pbs.org

• There are systems that use failure as fuel for improvement, where the cost of failure is small.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Cost, Use, Fuel

  Source: www.pbs.org

• A washing machine needs constant maintenance. It doesn't want any harm. It wants tranquility, and you need someone to - you're not going to harm it by continuously monitoring it and adjusting it.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Needs, Maintenance, Machines

  Source: www.pbs.org

• People work out, they stress their body, and their body gets stronger from stress.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Stress, People, Work Out

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Anything organic requires some dose of variability so it can adapt all the time, and fixing things is not a good idea.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Ideas, Fixing Things, Dose

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Any system that is deprived of its natural volatility, with government up (unintelligible) volatile, any system becomes very fragile.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Government, Natural, Volatility

  Source: www.pbs.org

• The opposite of fragile is something that gains from disorder.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Opposites, Gains, Robust

  Source: www.pbs.org

• If you're going to fail, you'd rather fail early than fail late in general.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Failing, Late, Ifs

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I'd rather have the market tell us what - I'd rather have events precipitate events, rather than just sit there like passive people in Washington.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  People, Events, Passive

  Source: www.pbs.org

• If you let markets - in general, my belief is that if you let markets give you information, they'll give you the information rather than artificially prop up everything.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Giving, Information, Belief

  Source: www.pbs.org