Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes - Page 6

Quotes about:

• Failure saves lives. In the airline industry, every time a plane crashes the probability of the next crash is lowered by that. The Titanic saved lives because we're building bigger and bigger ships. So these people died, but we have effectively improved the safety of the system, and nothing failed in vain.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Failure, People, Safety

  The Tavis Smiley Show, www.pbs.org. December 3, 2012.

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• What is nonmeasurable and nonpredictable will remain nonmeasurable and nonpredictable ... no matter how much hate mail I get.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Hate, Mail, Matter

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2012). “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder”, p.138, Random House

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• 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

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• The best philosophers were not academics, but had another job, so their philosophy was not corrupted by careerism.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Jobs, Philosophy, Philosopher

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• 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

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• If I could predict what my day would exactly look like, I would feel a little bit dead.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Looks, Littles, Feels

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2016). “Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile”, p.97, Random House

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• A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Lasts, Conversation, Starting

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2016). “Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile”, p.1748, Random House

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• Never think that lack of variability is stability. Don't confuse lack of volatility with stability, ever.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Thinking, Volatility, Stability

  "The Tavis Smiley Show" with Tavis Smiley, www.pbs.org. December 3, 2012.

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• Probability is not about the odds, but about the belief in the existence of an alternative outcome, cause, or motive.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Odds, Alternatives, Outcomes

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007). “Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets”, p.224, Penguin UK

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• What we need to do is break the financial community's grip on society.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Community, Needs, Financial

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• Wittgenstein's ruler: Unless you have confidence in the ruler's reliability, if you use a ruler to measure a table you may also be using the table to measure the ruler.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Reliability, Use, May

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2008). “Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets”, p.224, Random House

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• There are secrets to our world that only practice can reveal, and no opinion or analysis will ever capture in full.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Our World, Practice, Secret

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2012). “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder”, p.335, Random House

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• The fool generalizes the particular; the nerd particularizes the general; some do both; and the wise does neither

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Wise, Nerd, Doe

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2016). “Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile”, p.1755, Random House

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• Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act - if you can't control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Behaviour, Outcomes, Lasts

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• The track record of economists in predicting events is monstrously bad. It is beyond simplification; it is like medieval medicine.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Medicine, Track, Events

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• A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Vision, Special, Blind

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2016). “Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile”, p.1785, Random House

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• We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order. [...] We take what we know a little too seriously.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Knowledge, Order, Ornaments

  "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable". Book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, April 17, 2007.

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• If you hear a "prominent" economist using the word 'equilibrium,' or 'normal distribution,' do not argue with him; just ignore him, or try to put a rat down his shirt.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Trying, Rats, Normal

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility"”, p.210, Random House

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• Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Lying, People, Tears

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2016). “Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile”, p.1808, Random House

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• Many people keep deploring the low level of formal education in the United states (as defined by, say, math grades). Yet these fail to realize that the new comes from here and gets imitated elsewhere. And it is not thanks to universities, which obviously claim a lot more credit than their accomplishments warrant. Like Britain in the Industrial Revolution, America's asset is, simply, risk taking and the use of optionality, this remarkable ability to engage in rational forms fo trial and error, with no comparative shame in failing again, starting again, and repeating failure.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Math, Errors, America

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2012). “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder”, p.171, Random House

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• The sucker's trap is when you focus on what you know and what others don't know, rather than the reverse.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Focus, Traps, Reverse

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms”, p.55, Random House

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• Older people are most beautiful when they have what is lacking in the young: poise, erudition, wisdom, phronesis, and this post-heroic absence of agitation.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Beautiful, People, Agitation

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms”, p.27, Random House

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• The fragile wants tranquility, the antifragile grows from disorder, and the robust doesn't care too much.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Too Much, Care, Want

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2012). “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder”, p.20, Random House

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• The narrative fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them, or, equivalently, forcing a logical link, an arrow of relationship, upon them. Explanations bind facts together. They make them all the more easily remembered; they help them make more sense. Where this propensity can go wrong is when it increases our impression of understanding.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Arrows, Understanding, Together

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2016). “Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile”, p.860, Random House

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• Forecasting by bureaucrats tends to be used for anxiety relief rather than for adequate policy making.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Policy Making, Anxiety, Relief

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility"”, p.162, Random House

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