Top 100 Nicholas Taleb Quotes

#1. The narrative fallacy, Bezos explained, was a term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book The Black Swan to describe how humans are biologically inclined to turn complex realities into soothing but oversimplified stories.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #1563437
#2. Something has worked in the past, until - well, it unexpectedly no longer does, and what we have learned from the past turns out to be at best irrelevant or false, at worst viciously misleading.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #11
#3. What made medicine fool people for so long was that its successes were prominently displayed and its mistakes (literally) buried.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #676
#4. Every time you use a coffeemaker for your morning cappuccino, you are benefiting from the fragility of the coffeemaking entrepreneur who failed. He failed in order to help put the superior merchandise on your kitchen counter.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #2571
#5. My lesson from Soros is to start every meeting at my boutique by convincing everyone that we are a bunch of idiots who know nothing and are mistake-prone, but happen to be endowed with the rare privilege of knowing it.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #5472
#6. Evidence shows that we do much less thinking than we believe we do - except, of course, when we think about it.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #5493
#7. it did not so much judge the quality of a trader's performance as encourage him to game the system by working for short-term profits at the expense of possible blowups - like

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #8129
#8. When you walk the walk, whether successful or not, you feel more indifferent and robust to people's opinion, freer, more real.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #8743
#9. follows: to understand the future to the point of being able to predict it, you need to incorporate elements from this future itself. If

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #8818
#10. In the past, only some of the males, but all of the females, were able to procreate. Equality is more natural for females.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #9582
#11. Only in recent history has "working hard" signaled pride rather than shame for lack of talent, finesse and, mostly, sprezzatura .

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #10617
#12. The grandchildren should not bear the debts of the grandparents.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #11114
#13. Never ask a trader if he is profitable: you can easily see it in his gesture and gait.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #12698
#14. Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act - if you can't control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #17039
#15. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #18330
#16. Writers are remembered for their best work, politicians for their worst mistakes, and businessmen are almost never remembered.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #18587
#17. We have managed to transfer religious belief into gullibility for whatever can masquerade as science.

Nicholas Nassim Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #19865
#18. It might be useful to be able to predict war. But tension does not necessarily lead to war, but often to peace and to denouement.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #24358
#19. Make sure that you are in a situation where the constant mistakes are small and can be used for something.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #25864
#20. Karl Marx, a visionary, figured out that you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #26112
#21. 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.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #32910
#22. On the day when we are able to foresee inventions we will be living in a state where everything conceivable has been invented. Our

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #38309
#23. Never take advice from someone wearing a tie.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #38822
#24. A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #39237
#25. The best way to learn a language may be an episode of jail in a foreign country.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #45006
#26. The best test of whether someone is extremely stupid (or extremely wise) is whether financial and political news makes sense to him.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #52864
#27. Probability and expectation are not the same. Its probability and probability times the pay off.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #54814
#28. People often need to suspend their self-promotion, and have someone in their lives they do not need to impress. This explains dog ownership.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #54884
#29. The book is the only medium left that hasn't been corrupted by the profane.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #55863
#30. You view the world from within a model.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #55924
#31. People do not realize that the media is paid to get your attention. For a journalist, silence rarely surpasses any word.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #56274
#32. I have anecdotal evidence in my business that MBAs tend to blow up in financial markets, as they are trained to simplify matters a couple of steps beyond their requirement. (I beg the MBA reader not to take offense; I am myself the unhappy holder of the degree.)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #58040
#33. wealth does not count so much into one's well-being as the route one uses to get to it.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #60692
#34. Much of modern life is preventable chronic stress injury.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #61520
#35. We are quick to forget that just being alive is an extraordinary piece of good luck, a remote event, a chance occurrence of monstrous proportions.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #62630
#36. Don't cross a river if it is four feet deep on average.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #64383
#37. Don't look for the precise and local. Simply; do not be narrow minded.

Nicholas Nassim Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #66708
#38. What they call "play" (gym, travel, sports) looks like work.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #66754
#39. Someone who says "I am busy" is either declaring incompetence (and lack of control of his life) or trying to get rid of you.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #67228
#40. The problem lies in the structure of our minds: we don't learn rules, just facts, and only facts.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #67366
#41. Some business bets in which one wins big but infrequently, yet loses small but frequently, are worth making if others are suckers for them and if you have the personal and intellectual stamina.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #71548
#42. As countries get rich they start increasing education and the very educated people tend to not like trial and error, because they think they're obligated to use the body of knowledge they have.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #74510
#43. The epiphany I had in my career in randomness came when I understood that I was not intelligent enough, nor strong enough, to even try to fight my emotions.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #78928
#44. This simple inability to remember not the true sequence of events but a reconstructed one will make history appear in hindsight to be far more explainable than it actually was - or is.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #79272
#45. Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #82558
#46. When some systems are stuck in a dangerous impasse, randomness and only randomness can unlock them and set them free.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #84050
#47. The author cites researcher David Howard's idea of post-traumatic growth. Howard contends that some individuals faced with a traumatic event actually develop new strength.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #84335
#48. Daily news and sugar confuse our system in the same manner.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #85139
#49. Most so-called writers keep writing and writing with the hope to, some day, find something to say.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #86086
#50. The traits I respect are erudition and the courage to stand up when half-men are afraid for their reputation. Any idiot can be intelligent.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #86965
#51. Know how to rank beliefs not according to their plausibility but by the harm they may cause.

Nicholas Nassim Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #91803
#52. Anything that provides you with very, very stable income, very stable conditions, maybe generally stable, that often, it masks real risks, risks of blow-ups.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #91817
#53. I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or "incentives" for skill.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #98367
#54. We should reward people, not ridicule them, for thinking the impossible.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #103494
#55. Just as in matters of seduction, people lend the most to those who need them the least.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #106287
#56. This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is risky, that it is a bad thing - and that eliminating randomness is done by eliminating randomness.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #109067
#57. Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that's what you are seeking.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #110325
#58. We would not even need a statistician; a second-rate engineer would do.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #117375
#59. Deficits are like putting dynamite in the hands of children. They can get out of control very quickly.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #124256
#60. We humans lack imagination, to the point of not even knowing what tomorrow's important things will look like.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #124587
#61. Poverty is clearly one source of emotional suffering, but there are others, like loneliness.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #126348
#62. Two weekends in Philadelphia are not twice as pleasant as a single one - I've tried.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #142697
#63. The problem is that our ideas are sticky: once we produce a theory, we are not likely to change our minds ...

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #149725
#64. Greatness starts with the replacement of hatred with polite disdain.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #152175
#65. This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #153077
#66. If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #156013
#67. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg didn't finish college. Too much emphasis is placed on formal education - I told my children not to worry about their grades but to enjoy learning.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #157812
#68. system that overcompensates is necessarily in overshooting mode,

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #160285
#69. A Stoic is a Buddhist with attitude, one who says "f*** you" to fate.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #163191
#70. Governments are wasting billions of dollars on attempting to predict events that are produced by interdependent systems and are therefore not statistically understandable at the individual level.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #168273
#71. Life would be unbearably bland if we had no enemies on whom to waste efforts and energy.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #170846
#72. Things always become obvious after the fact

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #173200
#73. You will get the most attention from those who hate you. No friend, no admirer and no partner will flatter you with as much curiosity.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #174608
#74. Let us return to the idea that universities generate wealth and the growth of useful knowledge in society. There is a causal illusion here; time to bust it.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #174701
#75. If you let markets - in general, my belief is that if you let markets give you information, they'll give you the information rather than artificially prop up everything.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #176983
#76. Modernity needs to understand that being rich and becoming rich are not mathematically, personally, socially, and ethically the same thing.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #177367
#77. A country's assets reside in the tinkerers, the hobbyists, and the risk-takers.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #183517
#78. When you beat up someone physically, you get excercise and stress relief; when you assault him verbally on the Internet, you just harm yourself.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #184655
#79. Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #188411
#80. Only the autodidacts are free. And not just in school matters - those who decommoditize, detouristify their lives.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #190190
#81. Debt is a mistake between lender and borrower, and both should suffer.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #201040
#82. An elephant is vastly more efficient, metabolically, than a mouse. It's the same for a megacity as opposed to a village. But an elephant can break a leg very easily, whereas you can toss a mouse out of a window and it'll be fine. Size makes you fragile.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #201567
#83. You don't become completely free by just avoiding being a slave; you also need to avoid becoming a master.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #203946
#84. Loss of mental function, taste for Frank Sinatra music, and similar degenerative effects.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #204960
#85. The only article Lady Fortuna has no control over is your behavior. Good luck.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #209272
#86. True humility is when you can surprise yourself more than others; the rest is either shyness or good marketing

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #214963
#87. never trust the words of a man who is not free.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #216747
#88. Things are always obvious after the fact. The civil servant was a very intelligent person, and this mistake is much more prevalent than one would think. It has to do with the way our mind handles historical information.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #216860
#89. Avoidance of boredom is the only worthy mode of action. Life otherwise is not worth living.)

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #221134
#90. You exist if and only if you are free to do things without a visible objective, with no justification and, above all, outside the dictatorship of someone else's narrative.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #221906
#91. Author discussed what he calls the "narrative fallacy." This refers to our "limited ability" to look at a sequence of facts "without weaving an explanation into them.

Nicholas Nassim Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #229776
#92. To become a successful philosopher king, it is much better to start as a king than as a philosopher,

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #233515
#93. my antidote to Black Swans is precisely to be noncommoditized in my thinking. But

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #233864
#94. The curious mind embraces science; the gifted and sensitive, the arts; the practical, business; the leftover becomes an economist

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #235615
#95. We favor the sensational and the extremely visible. This affects the way we judge heroes. There is little room in our consciousness for heroes who do not deliver visible results - or those heroes who focus on process rather than results.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #235803
#96. When we want to do something while unconsciously certain to fail, we seek advice so we can blame someone else for the failure.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #237733
#97. Abundance is harder for us to handle than scarcity.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #242865
#98. Remember that you are a Black Swan.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #249728
#99. We humans are the victims of an asymmetry in the perception of random events. We attribute our successes to our skills, and our failures to external events outside our control, namely to randomness.

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Nicholas Taleb Quotes #249744
#100. No matter how sophisticated our choices, how good we are at dominating the odds, randomness will have the last word.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nicholas Taleb Quotes #258309

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