Quotes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb

the Black Swan is not just about the occurrence of some event but also about its depth and consequences.)

I had been told in high school that the planets are in something called equilibrium, so we did not have to worry about the stars hitting us unexpectedly. To me, that eerily resembled the stories we were also told about the "unique historical stability" of Lebanon.

There, I was surrounded by highly employable persons (my most unpleasant experience in life), until I switched to trading (with another firm) and discovered that there were some wolves among the dogs.

For Tony, the distinction in life isn't True or False, but rather sucker or nonsucker.

We see the obvious and visible consequences, not the invisible and less obvious ones. Yet those unseen consequences can be—nay, generally are—more meaningful.

se você não assumir riscos, não há nada que possa fazer para tornar-se grande, nada.

The longer the person stays with a company, the more emotional investment they will have in staying

for Buddhists, Shintoists, and Hindus, religion is practical and spiritual philosophy, with a code of ethics

No nostálgico livro Levant [Levante], Philip Mansel documenta de que modo as cidades do Mediterrâneo Oriental operavam como cidades-estados separadas do interior.

like the chronic stress we experience daily from small doses of negative feelings

Mathematics is not just a "numbers game," it is a way of thinking.

Time is the expert. Or, rather, the temperamental and ruthless Lindy, as we see in the next chapter.

So, Nero switched careers to what is called proprietary trading.

for Buddhists, Shintoists, and Hindus, religion is practical and spiritual philosophy, with a code of ethics (and for some, a cosmogony).

As to liquid, my rule is drink no liquid that is not at least a thousand years old—so its fitness has been tested. I drink just wine, water, and coffee. No soft drinks. Perhaps the most possibly deceitfully noxious drink is the orange juice we make poor innocent people imbibe at the breakfast table while, thanks to marketing, we convince them it is "healthy.

In these professions, no matter how highly paid, your income is subject to gravity.

He could sustain the pain if he saw only weekly performance numbers, instead of updates every minute.

To accept it takes both understanding and courage.

Those who talk should do and only those who do should talk

exposure is more important than knowledge;

their intention was to bring a critical "balance" and use me as a counter to the numerous imaginative forecasts

Our inferential machinery, that which we use in daily life, is not made for a complicated environment in which a statement changes markedly when its wording is slightly modified.

We saw with the minority rule that the intolerant will run over the tolerant;

I do not dispute that arguments should be simplified to their maximum potential; but people often confuse complex ideas that cannot be simplified into a media-friendly statement as symptomatic of a confused mind.