Never ask a trader if he is profitable: you can easily see it in his gesture and gait. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
If I could predict what my day would exactly look like, I would feel a little bit dead. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
It is much harder to become independent if you are wealthy than to become wealthy if you are independent. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
If you're going to fail, you'd rather fail early than fail late in general. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Dress your best on your execution day. Be extremely courteous to your assistant when you lose money. Try not to blame others… — 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… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Go to parties. You can't even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
It's not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
You exist if and only if you are free to do things without a visible objective, with no justification and, above all,… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words 'impossible', 'never', 'too difficult' too often, drop him or her from your social… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
If one puts an infinite number of monkeys in front of typewriters, and lets them clap away, there is a certainty that… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Don't read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
A good rule of thumb is as follows: If the numbers come from somebody wearing a tie (Wall Street economist or analyst,… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
If you roll dice, you know that the odds are one in six that the dice will come up on a particular… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
If my detractors knew me better they would hate me even more. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Redundancy is ambiguous because it seems like a waste if nothing unusual happens. Except that something unusual happens-usually . — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
If you let markets - in general, my belief is that if you let markets give you information, they'll give you the… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
It does not matter how frequently something succeeds if failure is too costly to bear. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
If you don't feel that you haven't read enough, you haven't read enough. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
If something is going on, I hear about it. I like to talk to people, I socialise. Television is a waste of… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut, and don't ask an academic if what he does is relevant. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act - if you can't… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
The same past data can confirm a theory and its exact opposite! If you survive until tomorrow, it could mean that either… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
If you sat with a pencil and jotted down all the decisions you've taken in the past week, or, if you could,… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Much of the research into humans' risk-avoidance machinery shows that it is antiquated and unfit for the modern world; it is made… — 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
