Quotes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We would not even need a statistician; a second-rate engineer would do.

An ad hominem attack against an intellectual, not against an idea, is highly flattering. It indicates that the person does not have anything intelligent to say about your message.

Engineers and tinkerers develop things while history books are written by academics; we will have to refine historical interpretations of growth, innovation, and many such things.

what Mother Nature does is rigorous until proven otherwise; what humans and science do is flawed until proven otherwise.

The answer is that there are two varieties of rare events: a) the narrated Black Swans, those that are present in the current discourse and that you are likely to hear about on television, and b) those nobody talks about, since they escape models—those that you would feel ashamed discussing in public because they do not seem plausible. I

Evidence shows that we do much less thinking than we believe we do-except, of course, when we think about it.

Like tormenting love, some thoughts are so antifragile that you feed them by trying to get rid of them, turning them into obsessions. Psychologists have shown the irony of the process of thought control: the more energy you put into trying to control your ideas and what you think about, the more your ideas end up controlling you.

When you look at the past, the past will always be deterministic, since only one single observation took place.

Beauty is enhanced by unashamed irregularities; magnificence by a façade of blunder

You need a story to displace a story. Metaphors and stories are far more potent (alas) than ideas; they are also easier to remember and more fun to read. If I have to go after what I call the narrative disciplines, my best tool is a narrative.

Half of life—the interesting half of life—we don't have a name for.

Bad-mouthing is the only genuine, never faked expression of admiration.

studying courage in textbooks doesn't make you any more courageous than eating cow meat makes you bovine.

it is about the distortions of symmetry and reciprocity in life: if you have the rewards, you must also get some of the risks— not let others pay the price of your mistakes. If you inflict risk onto others and they are harmed, you need to pay some price for it.

The problem lies in the structure of our minds: we don't learn rules, just facts, and only facts.

minds are in the business of turning history into something smooth and linear, which makes us underestimate randomness. But when we see it, we fear it and overreact. Because of this fear and thirst for order, some human systems, by disrupting the invisible or not so visible logic of things, tend to be exposed to harm from Black Swans and almost never get any benefit. You get pseudo-order when you seek order; you only get a measure of order and control when you embrace randomness.

The French thinker and poet Paul Valery was surprised to listen to a commentary of his poems that found meanings that had until then escaped him (of course, it was pointed out to him that these were intended by his subconscious).

If you find any reason why you and someone are friends, you are not friends.

Self-contradiction is made culturally to be shameful, a matter that can prove disastrous in science.

the mental probabilistic map in one's mind is so geared toward sensational that one would realize informational gains by dispensing with the news.

Life's beauty: the kindest act toward you in your life may come from an outsider not interested in reciprocation.

Have you noticed that while corporations sell you junk drinks, artisans sell you cheese and wine?

Nicocles, as early as the fourth century B.C., asserts that doctors claimed responsibility for success and blamed failure on nature, or on some external cause. The

If you engage in a Black Swan–dependent activity, it is better to be part of a group.