In science you need to understand the world; in business you need others to misunderstand it. Nassim Nicholas Taleb More Quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb More Quotes From Nassim Nicholas Taleb Modernity has replaced ethics with legalese, and the law can be gamed with a good lawyer. Nassim Nicholas Taleb modernityethicslaw Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better. Nassim Nicholas Taleb resilienceresilientget-better Let me be more aggressive: we are largely better at doing than we are at thinking, thanks to antifragility. I’d rather be dumb and antifragile than extremely smart and fragile, any time. Nassim Nicholas Taleb smartdumbthinking My nightmare scenario is that the government saves Citibank once again, as well as the other banks, and business resumes as usual. Then, the next time the system breaks, it breaks much, much bigger. Nassim Nicholas Taleb nextgovernmentusual A man without a heroic bent starts dying at the age of thirty. Nassim Nicholas Taleb dyingagemen This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most. Nassim Nicholas Taleb parenttragedyhurt If I could predict what my day would exactly look like, I would feel a little bit dead. Nassim Nicholas Taleb feelslittleslooks Is the economy something organic or is it something engineered? I think it's closer to the organic. You harm it by artificially suppressing volatility in it. Nassim Nicholas Taleb economyharmthinking We glorify those who left their names in history books at the expense of those contributors about whom our books are silent. We humans are not just a superficial race - we are a very unfair one. Nassim Nicholas Taleb racenamesbook The fragile wants tranquility, the antifragile grows from disorder, and the robust doesn't care too much. Nassim Nicholas Taleb caretoo-muchwant I have respect for mother nature's methods of robustness (billions of years allow most of what is fragile to break); classical thought is more robust (in its respect for the unknown, the epistemic humility) than the modern post-Enlightenment naïve pseudoscientific autism. Thus my classical values make me advocate the triplet of erudition, elegance, and courage; against modernity's phoniness, nerdiness and philistinism Nassim Nicholas Taleb humilitymotheryears The sucker's trap is when you focus on what you know and what others don't know, rather than the reverse. Nassim Nicholas Taleb reversetrapsfocus Experience is devoid of the cherry-picking that we find in studies. Nassim Nicholas Taleb cherriesexperiencestudy You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept. Nassim Nicholas Taleb ifs-andrichtaste An option hides where we don't want it to hide. Nassim Nicholas Taleb want To become a philosopher, start by walking very slowly. Nassim Nicholas Taleb philosopherwalking When some systems are stuck in a dangerous impasse, randomness and only randomness can unlock them and set them free. Nassim Nicholas Taleb randomnessstuckdangerous This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is a risk, that it is a bad thing. Nassim Nicholas Taleb randomnessillusionrisk Democracies can't handle austerity measures very well. Nassim Nicholas Taleb austeritywellsdemocracy Injecting some confusion stabilizes the system. Nassim Nicholas Taleb confusion
