Quotes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb

When asked to imagine the future, we have the tendency to take the present as a baseline

you need to make more and more to stay in the same place.

those who live under a self-imposed pressure to be optimal in their enjoyment of things suffer a measure of distress.

extreme event as a starting point and not treat it as an exception to be pushed under the rug.

He doesn't usually mind people calling him Fat Tony, but he much prefers to be called just Tony.

Nero, seu otário. Não se deixe iludir pelo dinheiro. São apenas números. Ser dono do próprio nariz é um estado de espírito".

the phrase kept repeating itself in my head.

is neither meaningful nor relevant.

Getting rich results in his seeing flaws in the goods and services he buys.

Borrowed wisdom can be vicious. I need to make a huge effort not to be swayed by well-sounding remarks. I remind myself of Einstein's remark that common sense is nothing but a collection of misconceptions acquired by age eighteen.

antifragility equals more to gain than to lose equals more upside than downside equals asymmetry (favorable) equals likes volatility.

But there are some things I can remain skeptical about, and others I can safely consider certain.

that even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I have no problem with risk taking, just please, please, do not call yourself conservative and act superior to other businesses who are not as vulnerable to Black Swans.

I knew I did not belong.

The world is split between those who don't know how to start making money and those who don't know when to stop.

To my knowledge there are no studies investigating the exact properties of trader's burnout, but a daily exposure to such high degrees of randomness without much control will have physiological effects on humans

The best slave is someone who is overpaid and he knows it

For those readers who wonder about the difference between Buddhism and Stoicism, I have a simple answer. A Stoic is a Buddhist with attitude, one who says "f*** you" to fate.

Nature is all about the exploitation of optionality; it illustrates how optionality is a substitute for intelligence.

shows why the convex likes volatility. If you earn more than you lose from fluctuations, you want a lot of fluctuations.

They love precision at the expense of applicability.

People who get promoted to important positions usually suffer from tightness of schedules: Everything has an allotted time.

The last thing a trader needs to do is be scientific or play econometrician during buisness hours.