This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is a risk, that it is a bad thing. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
When some systems are stuck in a dangerous impasse, randomness and only randomness can unlock them and set them free. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
You get pseudo-order when you seek order; you only get a measure of order and control when you embrace randomness. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
When an investor focuses on short-term investments, he or she is observing the variability of the portfolio, not the returns - in… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
I select a very small number of things to be sceptical about, such as markets, and on these I am hypersceptic. But… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Randomness works well in search sometimes better than humans. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
While in theory randomness is an intrinsic property, in practice, randomness is incomplete information. — 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
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