There is no effective difference between guessing a variable that is not random, but for which information is partial or deficient, and a random one. In this sense, guessing (what I don't know, but what someone else may know) and predicting (what has not taken place yet) are the same thing.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

creativity work motivational

Doctors most commonly get mixed up between absence of evidence and evidence of abense

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

mixing doctors medicine

They are born, put in a box; they go home to live in a box; they study by ticking boxes; they go to what is called "work" in a box, where they sit in their cubicle box; they drive to the grocery store in a box to buy food in a box; they talk about thinking "outside the box"; and when they die they are put in a box.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

humorous life funny

People are much less interested in what you are trying to show them than what you are trying to hide.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

shows trying people

You will be civilized on the day you can spend a long period doing nothing, learning nothing, and improving nothing, without feeling the slightest amount of guilt.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

guilt feelings long

Muscles without strength, friendship without trust, opinion without risk, change without aesthetics, age without values, food without nourishment, power without fairness, facts without rigor, degrees without erudition, militarism without fortitude, progress without civilization, complication without depth, fluency without content; these are the sins to remember.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

progress risk civilization

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

college jobs children

A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

pain mistake desire

The fastest way to become rich is to socialize with the poor; the fastest way to become poor is to socialize with the rich.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

rich poor way

Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

employment slavery thinking

...maximize the serendipity around you.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

serendipity luck

You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

ifs-and pursuit real

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

missing running ideas

By setting oneself totally free of constraints, free of thoughts, free of this debilitating activity called work, free of efforts, elements hidden in the texture of reality start staring at you; then mysteries that you never thought existed emerge in front of your eyes.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

effort eye reality

Only in recent history has "working hard" signaled pride rather than shame for lack of talent, finesse and, mostly, sprezzatura .

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

shame talent pride

You find peace by coming to terms with what you don't know.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

finding-peace term peace

Karl Marx, a visionary, figured out that you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

employee slave visionaries

Comfort makes you weaker. We need some variability, some stressors. Not too much, but just enough.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

too-much comfort needs

Intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

irrelevant

It is a sign of weakness to avoid showing signs of weakness.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

weakness