“Black Swan has three attributes: unpredictability, consequences, retrospective explainability.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
The central idea in The Black Swan is that: rare events cannot be estimated from empirical observation since they are rare. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“[...] what you see is likely to be less Black Swannish than what you do not see.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“The strategy for the discoverers and entrepreneurs is to rely less on top-down planning and focus on maximum tinkering and recognizing opportunities… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“The Black Swan asymmetry allows you to be confident about what is wrong, not about what you believe is right.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
In economic life and history more generally, just about everything of consequence comes from black swans; ordinary events have paltry effects in… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“And the Black Swan is what we leave out of simplification.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Imagine a speck of dust next to a planet a billion times the size of the earth. The speck of dust represents… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“What should we control? As a rule, intervening to limit size (of companies, airports, or sources of pollution), concentration, and speed are… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
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… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
In politics we face the choice between warmongering, nation-state loving, big-business agents on one hand; and risk-blind, top-down, epistemic arrogant big servants of large… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
My nightmare scenario is that the government saves Citibank once again, as well as the other banks, and business resumes as usual. Then, the… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Using, as an excuse, others' failure of common sense is in itself a failure of common sense. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
You know, children philosophize more than adults - and they are critical of adults. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Suckers think that you cure greed with money, addiction with substances, expert problems with experts, banking with bankers, economics with economists, and debt crises… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“One needs to go out and buy a lottery ticket in order to win. Does it mean that the work involved in the trip… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Individuals should think about the worst-case scenarios and plan for them. The world will be crazier than you think it will be. Put money… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“If you are looking for your misplaced wallet in your living room, in a trial and error mode, you exercise rationality by not looking… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Most humans manage to squander their free time, as free time makes them dysfunctional, lazy, and unmotivated—the busier they get, the more active they… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
We learn the most from fools ... yet we pay them back with the worst ingratitude. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
