An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist or consultant the opposite. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
But it remains the case that you know what is wrong with a lot more confidence than you know what is right. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
You want failures to be small and informational. Silicon Valley does very well. It knows how to use failure as a tool… — 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
My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves and the quality of their knowledge too seriously and those who don't have… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows us to… — 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
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
I suppose that the main benefit of being rich (over just being independent) is to be able to despise rich people (a… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
There is no effective difference between guessing a variable that is not random, but for which information is partial or deficient, and… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Scientists don't know what they are talking about when they talk about religion. Religion has nothing to do with belief, and I… — 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
