Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

If I ask you to write down the last 4 digits of your social security number, and then take you out to lunch and ask you how many dentists there are in Manhattan, there's going to be a high correlation between those two numbers. What happens is that the number psychologically makes you feel confident.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Lunch, Confident, Numbers, Manhattan

The best philosophers were not academics, but had another job, so their philosophy was not corrupted by careerism.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Another, Academics, Were, Corrupted

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

Education, College, Placed, Steve

When you ask people, 'What's the opposite of fragile?,' they tend to say robust, resilient, adaptable, solid, strong. That's not it. The opposite of fragile is something that gains from disorder.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Strong, Solid, Robust, Gains

Being an economist is the least ethical profession, closer to charlatanism than any science.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Science, Profession, Than, Economist

For many people, commuting is the worst part of the day, and policies that can make commuting shorter and more convenient would be a straightforward way to reduce minor but widespread suffering.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Straightforward, Reduce, Convenient

Banking is a very treacherous business because you don't realize it is risky until it is too late. It is like calm waters that deliver huge storms.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Too Late, Very, Waters, Banking

Success is about honour, feeling morally calibrated, absence of shame, not what some newspaper defines from an external metric.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Shame, Newspaper, Some, Morally

When I trade, I don't have an agency problem; I have my neck on the line. When a bank or banker trades, it's not his neck on the line.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Neck, Line, Agency, Trades

The track record of economists in predicting events is monstrously bad. It is beyond simplification; it is like medieval medicine.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Bad, Like, Medieval, Events

The next time you experience a blackout, take some solace by looking at the sky. You will not recognize it.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Sky, Next, Some, Next Time

Economics make homeopath and alternative healers look empirical and scientific.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Economics, Scientific, Healers

Most people are sceptical about the wrong things and gullible about the wrong things.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Most, Gullible, Sceptical, Wrong Things

You have family-owned businesses that have been around for 500 years. You cannot name a corporation that survives intact for even a few decades.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Corporation, Been, Around, Family-Owned

Deficits are like putting dynamite in the hands of children. They can get out of control very quickly.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Hands, Very, Putting, Dynamite

Capitalism is about adventurers who get harmed by their mistakes, not people who harm others with their mistakes.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Get, Harm, Harmed, Adventurers

People have the problem of denial. This is one of the things I learned in Lebanon. Everybody who left Beirut when the war started, including my parents, said, 'Oh, its temporary.' It lasted 17 years! People tend to underestimate the gravity of these situations. That's how they work.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Temporary, Denial, Everybody, Lebanon

Failure saves lives. In the airline industry, every time a plane crashes the probability of the next crash is lowered by that. The Titanic saved lives because we're building bigger and bigger ships. So these people died, but we have effectively improved the safety of the system, and nothing failed in vain.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Saved, Next, Plane, Titanic

The Internet allows the small guy a global marketplace. But technology is harmful in the sense that we get too much information from it. Because of the web we get 10 times the amount of noise we ever got, which makes harmful fallacies far more likely.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Small, Guy, Global, Harmful

All of technology, really, is about maximizing free options.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Technology, About, Options, Maximizing

Debt is a mistake between lender and borrower, and both should suffer.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Mistake, Suffer, Lender, Borrower

The world we live in is vastly different from the world we think we live in.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

World, Think, Different, Vastly

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

Curiosity, Will, Most, Admirer

Governments that try to shoot for a surplus hardly ever reach it.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Reach, Ever, Surplus, Hardly

I drive a hybrid, moving into an electric car. I only drink tap water, never consume food that's travelled.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Electric, Consume, Tap, Travelled

If you are an Arabic-speaking, Greek-Orthodox going to a French school it makes you deeply sceptical if you have to listen to three different accounts of the Crusades - one from the Muslim side, one from the Greek side and one from the Catholic side.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Greek, Muslim, Side, Accounts

Alan Greenspan is unskilled; you don't take the unskilled seriously.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Seriously, Take, Unskilled, Alan

I'm a capitalist but one who is smallist and localist, and who favours businesses where owners are still in charge.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Charge, Still, Capitalist, Businesses

Never think that lack of variability is stability. Don't confuse lack of volatility with stability, ever.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Think, Never, Ever, Stability

We know from chaos theory that even if you had a perfect model of the world, you'd need infinite precision in order to predict future events. With sociopolitical or economic phenomena, we don't have anything like that.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Chaos, Perfect, Need, Economic

I no longer care about the financial system. I gave them my roadmap. OK? Thanks, bye. I've no idea what's going on. I'm disconnected. I'm totally disengaged.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Financial, Idea, Going, Disconnected

Globalization has created this interlocking fragility. At no time in the history of the universe has the cancellation of a Christmas order in New York meant layoffs in China.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

New, No Time, Meant, Layoffs

Most so-called writers keep writing and writing with the hope, some day, to find something to say.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Find, Some, Most, So-Called

Bailing out every bank that fails makes the system riskier, not safer.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Bank, System, Safer, Bailing

Fragility is the quality of things that are vulnerable to volatility.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Things, Vulnerable, Volatility

I lift heavy weights and sprint, but I am so bad at it that I develop severe injuries.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Injuries, Bad, Sprint, Weights

We are victims of the post-Enlightenment view that the world functions like a sophisticated machine, to be understood like a textbook engineering problem and run by wonks. In other words, like a home appliance, not like the human body.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Sophisticated, Appliance, Understood

I don't read the papers; I stopped reading the papers. I read the papers only during periods of crisis, and I think papers are too long on a regular day and too short days when we have a crisis.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Think, I Think, Stopped, Regular

Individuals should think about the worst-case scenarios and plan for them. The world will be crazier than you think it will be. Put money away, and then you can live with much more freedom.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Think, Will, Away, Crazier

I've been telling anyone willing to listen that banks have a tendency to sit on time bombs while convincing themselves that they are conservative and nonvolatile.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Conservative, Been, Telling, Sit

The people I go after are the false experts, those who do not accept the limits of their knowledge.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

People, Go, False, Limits

Corporations take the humanity out of trade - they take the happiness out and replace it with something that is ugly.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Happiness, Trade, Take, Corporations

In the United States, large corporations control some members of Congress. All this does is delay the corporation's funeral at our expense.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Some, United States, Large, Corporations

What we do today has nothing to do with capitalism or socialism. It is a crony type of system that transfers money to the coffers of bureaucrats.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Today, Money, System, Bureaucrats

A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Last, Maxim, Even, Conversation

I'm in favour of religion as a tamer of arrogance. For a Greek Orthodox, the idea of God as creator outside the human is not God in God's terms. My God isn't the God of George Bush.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Idea, Greek, Creator, Orthodox

Nature builds things that are antifragile. In the case of evolution, nature uses disorder to grow stronger. Occasional starvation or going to the gym also makes you stronger, because you subject your body to stressors and gain from them.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Your, Subject, Occasional, Case

In social policy, when we provide a safety net, it should be designed to help people take more entrepreneurial risks, not to turn them into dependents. This doesn't mean that we should be callous to the underprivileged.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Safety, Turn, Should, Designed

Capitalism has forced everyone to overoptimize in order to compete.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Compete, Everyone, Forced, Order

The key to wealth is that it doesn't matter. Once you've had it, you don't think anything of it; you can wear cheap watches.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Wealth, Think, Watches, Key

We have this culture of financialization. People think they need to make money with their savings rather with their own business. So you end up with dentists who are more traders than dentists. A dentist should drill teeth and use whatever he does in the stock market for entertainment.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Entertainment, Rather, Use, Dentist

I don't know anyone on Wall Street who goes to work every day thinking of anything but how to increase their bonus.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Work, Goes, Bonus, Increase

When you write, you don't have the social constraints of having people in front of you, so you talk about abstract matters.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Social, About, Having, Front

A country's assets reside in the tinkerers, the hobbyists, and the risk-takers.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Country, Reside, Assets

Paul Krugman is a danger to society!

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Society, Danger, Paul

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

Tension, Might, Does, Useful

People employed in financial institutions are rarely interesting and even more rarely likable.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

More, Institutions, Even, Likable

The American people will eventually get hurt by this accumulated deficit. That's the problem. We have too much deficit. We have to find a solution.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

American, Will, Eventually, Deficit

I hated school because I liked to daydream and the system tried to stop me from that.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Stop, System, Tried, Hated

I select a very small number of things to be sceptical about, such as markets, and on these I am hypersceptic. But I want to be fooled by randomness in art. I want the ceremonial of religion; we are made for it.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Art, Small, Very, Fooled

If you are in banking and lending, surprise outcomes are likely to be negative for you.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Surprise, Negative, Likely, Outcomes

Writing is sacred, other activities are profane, and I don't want them to corrupt my writing.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Other, Corrupt, Activities, Profane

The grandchildren should not bear the debts of the grandparents.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Grandchildren, Debts, Should, Bear

The mortgage crisis is a clear instance of consumers who needed protection. There was predatory lending to people who didn't know what they were doing.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Doing, Crisis, Instance, Consumers

I am happy everywhere except in places where I see glitz and rich farts. I am happiest in Brooklyn, where the concentration of rich farts is minimal.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Happy, I Am Happy, Happiest, Minimal

Never take advice from anyone in a tie. They'll bankrupt you. Don't ask a general for advice on war, and don't ask a broker for advice on money.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

War, Advice, Broker, Bankrupt

We should ban banks from risk-taking because society is going to pay the price.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Society, Risk-Taking, Banks, Ban

Years ago, I noticed one thing about economics, and that is that economists didn't get anything right.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Noticed, One Thing, About, Years Ago

You know, children philosophize more than adults - and they are critical of adults.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Children, More, Critical, Adult

We humans lack imagination, to the point of not even knowing what tomorrow's important things will look like.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Will, Like, Important Things, Humans

Nobody reads the disclosures that roll down your computer screen. You click 'I agree' but you don't know what you're agreeing to.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Screen, Roll, Reads, Click

I'm a private intellectual, not a public one.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Private, Public, Intellectual

I have never had personal debt and never will.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Never, Will, Had, Debt

Poverty is clearly one source of emotional suffering, but there are others, like loneliness.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Suffering, Emotional, Like, Poverty

You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Money, Better, Tastes, Refuse

What America does best is produce the ability to accept failure.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Failure, Best, Does, Ability

I don't go to the doctor except when I'm very ill, and when I go to India, I drink a drop of local water.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Drop, Go, Very, India

Democracies can't handle austerity measures very well.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Very, Measures, Austerity, Handle

Inequalities of wealth lead to a dispersion in wealth for all.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Wealth, Lead, Inequalities

If you take risks and face your fate with dignity, there is nothing you can do that makes you small; if you don't take risks, there is nothing you can do that makes you grand, nothing.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Fate, Small, Nothing, Grand

There are two types of people: those who try to win and those who try to win arguments. They are never the same.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Try, Never, Same, Types

What we need to do is break the financial community's grip on society.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Society, Need, Break, Grip

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