Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

• Modernity has replaced ethics with legalese, and the law can be gamed with a good lawyer.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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• A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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  Tags in Process

• The opposite of manliness isn’t cowardice; it’s technology.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Topics in Technology

• Aesthetics, ethics, and many good things in humans are contagious.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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• Realism is punishing. Probabilistic skepticism is worse.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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• The worst thing one can do to feel one knows things a bit deeper is to try to go into them a bit deeper.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Topics in Knowledge

• Every social association that is not face-to-face is injurious to your health.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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  Tags in Internet

• We favor the visible, the embedded, the personal, the narrated, and the tangible; we scorn the abstract.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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• Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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  Tags in Modernity

• Maximum of an average is necessarily less volatile than the average maximum.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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  Tags in Average

• The classical man’s worst fear was inglorious death; the modern man’s worst fear is just death.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Topics in Death

• We tend to use knowledge as therapy.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Topics in Knowledge

• My best definition of a nerd: someone who asks you to explain an aphorism.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Topics in Humor

• True humility is when you can surprise yourself more than others; the rest is either shyness or good marketing.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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• Probability and expectation are not the same. Its probability and probability times the pay off.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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  Tags in Fact

• A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Topics in Wisdom

• When you beat up someone physically, you get exercise and stress relief; when you assault him verbally on the Internet, you just harm yourself.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Internet

• The inability to predict outliers implies the inability to predict the course of history.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Topics in History

• People focus on role models; it is more effective to find anti models – people you don’t want to resemble when you grow up.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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  Tags in Celebrity

• Meditation is a way to be narcissistic without hurting anyone.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb (37)

Birth:	1960
Nationality:	American, Lebanese
Profession:	Author, Essayist, Professor, Researcher, Statistician

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Today's Anniversary - 31st May

Births

• 1773 - Ludwig Tieck
• 1967 - Phil Keoghan
• 1948 - Duncan Hunter
• 1884 - Phyllis Bottome
• 1939 - Terry Waite

Deaths

• 1970 - Terry Sawchuk
• 2004 - Robert Quine
• 1996 - Timothy Leary
• 1847 - Thomas Chalmers
• 1981 - Barbara Ward