Quotes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Pasteur said, like all great discoverers, he knew something about accidental discoveries. The best way to get maximal exposure is to keep researching. Collect opportunities--

Decentralization is based on the simple notion that it is easier to macrobull***t than microbull***t. Decentralization reduces large structural asymmetries.

It seems that it is the most unsuccessful people who give the most advice, particularly for writing and financial matters.

Unless you are perfectly narcissistic and psychopathic—even then—your worst-case scenario is never limited to the loss of only your life.

History and societies do not crawl. They make jumps. They go from fracture to fracture, with a few vibrations in between. Yet we (and historians) like to believe in the predictable, small incremental progression.

common sense is nothing but a collection of misconceptions acquired by age eighteen. Furthermore, What sounds intelligent in a conversation or a meeting, or, particularly, in the media, is suspicious.

The left holds that because markets are stupid models should be smart; the right believes that because models are stupid markets should be smart. Alas, it never hit both sides that both markets and models are very stupid.

It hit me right there and then that these antifragile hormetic responses were just a form of redundancy, and all the ideas of Mother Nature converged in my mind. It is all about redundancy. Nature likes to overinsure itself.

In an antique city-state, or a modern municipality, shame is the penalty for the violation of ethics—making things more symmetric. Banishment and exile, or, worse, ostracism were severe penalties—people did not move around voluntarily and considered uprooting a horrible calamity. In larger organisms like the mega holy nation-state, with a smaller role for face-to-face encounters, and social roots, shame ceases to fulfill its duty of disciplinarian.

Almost all people answer that the opposite of fragile is robust, resilient, solid, or something of the sort. But the resilient, robust (and company) items that neither break nor improve, so you would not need to write anything on them--have you ever seen a package with robust in thick green letters stamped on it? Logically, the exact opposite of a fragile parcel would be a package on which one has written please mishandle or please handle carelessly.

Increasingly, data can only truly deliver via negativa–style knowledge—it can be effectively used to debunk, not confirm.

This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is risky, that it is a bad thing—and that eliminating randomness is done by eliminating randomness.

My dream—the solution—is that we would have a National Entrepreneur Day, with the following message: Most of you will fail, disrespected, impoverished, but we are grateful for the risks you are taking and the sacrifices you are making for the sake of the economic growth of the planet and pulling others out of poverty. You are at the source of our antifragility. Our nation thanks you.

Asking science to explain life and vital matters is equivalent to asking a grammarian to explain poetry.

Silver Rule (negative golden rule): Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you. Note the difference from the Golden Rule, as the silver one prevents busybodies from attempting to run your life.

It is my great hope someday to see science and decision makers rediscover what the ancients have always known, namely that our highest currency is respect.

In a thick and captivating book, La rebellion française, the historian Jean Nicolas shows how the culture of rioting was extremely sophisticated—historically, it counts as the true French national sport.

be sophisticated you need to accept that you are not so.

The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.

Artisans, say, taxi drivers, prostitutes (a very, very old profession), carpenters, plumbers, tailors, and dentists, have some volatility in their income but they are rather robust to a minor professional Black Swan, one that would bring their income to a complete halt. Their risks are visible. Not so with employees, who have no volatility, but can be surprised to see their income going to zero after a phone call from the personnel department. Employees' risks are hidden.

If the professor is not capable of giving a class without preparation, don't attend. People should only teach what they have learned organically, through experience and curiosity…or get another job.

The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know.

What I learned on my own I still remember.

It is much more immoral to claim virtue without fully living with its direct consequences.