Quotes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The problem of lumpy payoffs is not so much in the lack of income they entail, but the pecking order, the loss of dignity, the subtle humiliations near the watercooler.

If you think that you can control your emotions, think that some people also believe that they can control their heartbeat or hair growth.)

There are some people who, if they don't already know, you can't tell them. As the great philosopher of uncertainty Yogi berra once said, Don't waste your time trying to fight forecasters, stock analysts, economists and social scientists, except to play pranks on them.

Society doesn't evolve by consensus, voting, majority, committees, verbose meetings, academic conferences, tea and cucumber sandwiches, or polling; only a few people suffice to disproportionately move the needle. All one needs is an asymmetric rule somewhere—and someone with soul in the game. And asymmetry is present in about everything.

Their three flaws: 1) they think in statics not dynamics, 2) they think in low, not high, dimensions, 3) they think in terms of actions, never interactions.

Mediocristan is where we must endure the tyranny of the collective, the routine, the obvious, and the predicted; Extremistan is where we are subjected to the tyranny of the singular, the accidental, the unseen, and the unpredicted.

The best test of whether someone is extremely stupid (or extremely wise) is whether financial and political news makes sense to him.

Simply, humans should not be given explosive toys (like atomic bombs, financial derivatives, or tools to create life).

From such examples, I derived the rule that what is called "healthy" is generally unhealthy, just as "social" networks are antisocial, and the "knowledge"-based economy is typically ignorant.

You may prefer apples to oranges, oranges to pears, but pears to apples—it depends on how the choices are presented to you. The

On the one hand, I try to define myself and behave officially as a no-nonsense hyperrealist ferreting out the role of chance; on the other, I have no qualms indulging in all manner of personal superstitions. Where do I draw the line? The answer is aesthetics.

In a natural environment, people die without aging—or after a very short period of aging.

it so happens that America is currently far, far more creative than these nations of museumgoers and equation solvers. It is also far more tolerant of bottom-up tinkering and undirected trial and error. And

from increasing the number of people in the "tails," that small, very small number of risk takers crazy enough to have ideas of their own, those endowed with

Compromising is condoning. The only modern dictum I follow is one by George Santayana: A man is morally free when Ã¢â'¬Â¦ he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity. This is not just an aim but an obligation.

that very rare ability called imagination, that rarer quality called courage, and who make things happen.

Above all, an erudite can be dissatisfied with his own knowledge, and such dissatisfaction is a wonderful shield against Platonicity, the simplifications of the five-minute manager, or the philistinism of the overspecialized scholar. Indeed, scholarship without erudition can lead to disasters.

This anchoring to a number is the reason people do not react to their total accumulated wealth, but to differences of wealth from whatever number they are currently anchored to. This is the major conflict with economic theory, as according to economists, someone with $1 million in the bank would be more satisfied than if he had half a million. But

There is a Yiddish saying: "If I am going to be forced to eat pork, it better be of the best kind." If I am going to be fooled by randomness, it better be of the beautiful (and harmless) kind.

To grasp the difference between Universal and Particular, consider that some dress better to impress a single, specific person than an entire crowd.

If both the positive and the negative consequences of an action fell on its author, our learning would be fast. But often an action's positive consequences benefit only its author, since they are visible, while the negative consequences, being invisible, apply to others, with a net cost to society.

So, suspecting that Nero had a contract on her, she got herself Mithridatized against the poisons that would have been available to her son's underlings. Like Mithridates, Agrippina eventually died by more mechanical methods as her son (supposedly) had assassins slay her, thus providing us with the small but meaningful lesson that one cannot be robust against everything. And, two thousand years later, nobody has found a method for us to get "fortified" against swords.

The consequences are not trivial: It means that rational thinking has little, very little, to do with risk avoidance. Much of what rational thinking seems to do is rationalize one's actions by fitting some logic to them.

Seneca's version of that Stoicism is antifragility from fate. No downside from Lady Fortuna, plenty of upside.