Quotes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb

People go to business school to learn how to do well while ensuring their survival—but what the economy, as a collective, wants them to do is to not survive, rather to take a lot, a lot of imprudent risks themselves and be blinded by the odds. Their respective industries improve from failure to failure

But there is an alternative; it is less obvious and remains unseen.

We respect what has happened, ignoring what could have happened.

never ask a man if he is from Sparta: If he were, he would have let you know such an important fact—and if he were not, you could hurt his feelings.

The longer we had to wait for it, the more severe it would be.

The problem is primarily size, and the fragility that comes from size.

The distribution was massively skewed, with the bulk of the deaths coming from birth and childhood mortality.

This absence of penalty makes them antifragile at the expense of the society

This same point can be generalized to life: maximize the serendipity around you.

at any point in time, the richest traders are often the worst traders.

Verbal threats reveal nothing beyond weakness and unreliability. Remember, once again, no verbal threats.

our actions are not quite guided by the parts of our brain that dictate rationality. We think with our emotions and there is no way around it.

I spent the past two decades wondering why France, as a country managed in a top-down manner by an oversized state, could fare so well in so many fields. It is the country of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, after all, the grand dreamer of a state that infiltrates everything. Indeed the current culture is ultra-interventionist, sort of "if it ain't broke, fix it.

is the exact contrary of knowledge; one should learn to avoid using terms made for knowledge to describe its opposite.

Black Swan is a sucker's problem. In other words, it occurs relative to your expectation

so the gains in life expectancy are more societal than from the result of scientific advance.

Note a slight disagreement on my part that does not change the story by much: the world, rather, moves by large incremental random changes.

It is a very powerful manipulation to let others win the small battles.

because these professions are more immune to randomness.

In the famous tale by Ahiqar, later picked up by Aesop (then again by La Fontaine), the dog boasts to the wolf all the contraptions of comfort and luxury he has, almost prompting the wolf to enlist. Until the wolf asks the dog about his collar and is terrified when he understands its use. "Of all your meals, I want nothing." He ran away and is still running.*3 The question is: what would you like to be, a dog or a wolf?

A genius is someone with flaws harder to imitate than his qualities.

people who are otherwise rational engage in smoking or in fights that get them no immediate benefits;

I am not saying that Warren Buffett is not skilled; only that a large population of random investors will almost necessarily produce someone with his track records just by luck.

While a ten-year survival rate for a trader is in the single digits, that of a risk manager is close to 100%).