Quotes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb

how professionals can cause harm for such a long time in the name of knowledge and get away with it.

setting wealth back by several decades

And the role of such formal knowledge will be overappreciated precisely because it is highly visible.

los «modernos» intentan innovar partiendo de una situación de comodidad, seguridad y previsibilidad en lugar de aceptar la noción de que la inventiva surge de la necesidad.

In sum, the long tail is a by-product of Extremistan that makes it somewhat less unfair: the world is made no less unfair for the little guy, but it now becomes extremely unfair for the big man. Nobody is truly established. The little guy is very subversive.

but in the absence of an owner, a dog does not survive.

The floor of the Parthenon is curved in reality so we can see it as straight.

The forecasters' errors were significantly larger than the average difference between individual forecasts, which indicates herding. Normally, forecasts should be as far from one another as they are from the predicted number.

his presence is needed at every performance

They also serve the interest of other groups.

The curse of modernity is that we are increasingly populated by a class of people who are better at explaining than understanding

These food recipes are embedded in cultures. Cooking schools are entirely apprenticeship based.

There are many things without words, matters that we know and can act on but cannot describe directly

The hidden costs of health care are largely in the denial of antifragility.

A wolf is trained to survive.

they make sure that the costs of being wrong are limited (and their probability is not derived from past data).

I am most often irritated by those who attack the bishop but somehow fall for the securities analyst—those who exercise their skepticism against religion but not against economists, social scientists, and phony statisticians.

Black Swan Is Relative to Knowledge

my antidote to Black Swans is precisely to be noncommoditized in my thinking. But

The idea is simple, yet potent and universal.

He does not mind looking like a fool or, worse, an ignoramus.

It is easier for the rich to get richer, for the famous to become more famous.

Develops intuitions from practice, goes from observations to books

Again, limited, low-dose poisoning triggers healthy benefits.