What fools call "wasting time" is most often the best investment. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“In the long run everything with the most minute vulnerability breaks, given the ruthlessness of time.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
The next time you experience a blackout, take some solace by looking at the sky. You will not recognize it. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“In the past, only some of the males, but all of the females, were able to procreate. Equality is more natural for… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“those who are very good at predicting the past will think of themselves as good at predicting the future,” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“When you look at the past, the past will always be deterministic, since only one single observation took place.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Anything organic requires some dose of variability so it can adapt all the time, and fixing things is not a good idea. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
I've been telling anyone willing to listen that banks have a tendency to sit on time bombs while convincing themselves that they… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“He provides the example of a philosopher who puzzles about the reality of time, but who nonetheless applies for a research grant… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“It takes a huge investment in introspection to learn that the thirty or more hours spent “studying” the news last month neither… — 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
“Things that have worked for a long time are preferable - they are more likely to have reached their ergodic states. At… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Globalization has created this interlocking fragility. At no time in the history of the universe has the cancellation of a Christmas order… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“In 1960 Taiwan had a much lower literacy rate than the Philippines and half the income per person; today Taiwan has ten… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Most info-Web-media-newspaper types have a hard time swallowing the idea that knowledge is reached (mostly) by removing junk from peoples heads” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“The observation of the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments, or to admire… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Aside from the decorum of ancient thought as opposed to the coarseness of fresh ink, I have spent some time phrasing the… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“There are some people who, if they don't already know, you can't tell them. As the great philosopher of uncertainty Yogi berra… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Of course chance favors the prepared! Hard work, showing up on time, wearing a clean (preferably white) shirt, using deodorant, and some… — 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
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
“Our human race is affected by a chronic underestimation of the possibility of the future straying from the course initially envisioned (in… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Such trait of absence of marriage to ideas is indeed rare among humans. Just as we do with children, we support those… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Scientists may be in the business of laughing at their predecessors, but owing to an array of human mental dispositions, few realize… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Note that scholars are judged mostly on how many times their work is referenced in other people's work and thus cliques are… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
But they never notice the following inconsistency: this so-called worst-case event, when it happened, exceeded the worst case at the time. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“be. So I follow the Lindy effect as a guide in selecting what to read: books that have been around for ten… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“If the past, by bringing surprises, did not resemble the past previous to it (what I call the past's past), then why… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“The next time someone pesters you with unneeded advice, gently remind him of the fate of the monk whom Ivan the Terrible… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“good news is good news first; how good matters rather little. So to have a pleasant life you should spread these small… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Prediction requires knowing about technologies that will be discovered in the future, but that very knowledge would almost automatically allow us to… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
It was obvious that their profits were simply cash borrowed from destiny with some random payback time. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“it is easy to see that history is truly written by losers with time on their hands and a protected academic position.” — 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
Probability and expectation are not the same. Its probability and probability times the pay off. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“As a child of civil war, I disbelieve in structured learning—actually I believe that one can be an intellectual without being a… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“There is something nonphilosophical about investing one’s pride and ego into a “my house/ library/ car is bigger than that of others… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“I propose that if you want a simple step to a higher form of life, as distant from the animal as you… — 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
