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
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 Copy Share Image
In social policy, when we provide a safety net, it should be designed to help people take more entrepreneurial risks, not to… — 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
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
People employed in financial institutions are rarely interesting and even more rarely likable. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
People are much less interested in what you are trying to show them than what you are trying to hide. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
As countries get rich they start increasing education and the very educated people tend to not like trial and error, because they… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
The number of managers with great track records in a given market depends far more on the number of people who started… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Many people keep deploring the low level of formal education in the United states (as defined by, say, math grades). Yet these… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
People used to wear ordinary clothes weekdays, and formal attire on Sunday. Today it is the exact reverse. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
People focus on role models; it is more effective to find antimodels - people you don't want to resemble when you grow… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Categorizing is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
The worst side effect of wealth is the social associations it forces on its victims, as people with big houses end up… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
We should reward people, not ridicule them, for thinking the impossible. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
They are born, put in a box; they go home to live in a box; they study by ticking boxes; they go… — 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
