Quotes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb

These impulses to buy new things that will eventually lose their novelty

We have the illusion that the world functions thanks to programmed design, university research, and bureaucratic funding, but there is compelling—very compelling—evidence to show that this is an illusion, the illusion I call lecturing birds how to fly.

We certainly know a lot, but we have a built-in tendency to think that we know a little bit more than we actually do, enough of that little bit to occasionally get into serious trouble.

The entire notion of biography is grounded in the arbitrary ascription of a causal relation between specified traits and subsequent events.

You know instinctively that people get along better as neighbors than roommates.

Virtue is not something you advertise.

Stálin não poderia ter existido em um município".

We favor the visible, the embedded, the personal, the narrated, and the tangible; we scorn the abstract. Everything good (aesthetics, ethics) and wrong (Fooled by Randomness) with us seems to flow from it.

And numerical prediction leads people to take more risks.

it is contagion that determines the fate of a theory in social science, not its validity.

Entrepreneurs are selected to be just doers, not thinkers, and doers do, they don't talk, and it would be unfair, wrong, and downright insulting to measure them in the talk department.

Yet simplicity has been difficult to implement in modern life because it is against the spirit of a certain brand of people who seek sophistication so they can justify their profession. Less is more and usually more effective.

there was no way to convince the management otherwise.

We have always been crazy but weren't skilled enough to destroy the world. Now we can.

The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know. Lack of knowledge and delusion about the quality of your knowledge come together—the same process that makes you know less also makes you satisfied with your knowledge.

Instead of having medium risk, you have high risk on one side and no risk on the other.

as he can carry a library on his device and "optimize" his time between golf outings.

they think in terms of actions, never interactions.

politicians whose interests are not lined up with those of the people they represent.

that slavery is more widespread than anticipated

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

Stalin could not have existed in a municipality.

Some become antifragile at the expense of others by getting the upside (or gains) from volatility, variations, and disorder and exposing others to the downside risks of losses or harm. And such antifragility-at-the-cost-of-fragility-of-others is hidden

not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that's what you are seeking.