You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits. Nassim Nicholas Taleb More Quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb More Quotes From Nassim Nicholas Taleb Much of the research into humans' risk-avoidance machinery shows that it is antiquated and unfit for the modern world; it is made to counter repeatable attacks and learn from specifics. If someone narrowly escapes being eaten by a tiger in a certain cave, then he learns to avoid that cave. Nassim Nicholas Taleb risk caves research It takes extraordinary wisdom and self-control to accept that many things have a logic we do not understand that is smarter than our own. Nassim Nicholas Taleb logic accepting self We tend to use knowledge as therapy. Nassim Nicholas Taleb therapy use 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 errors skills people To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week's newspapers. Nassim Nicholas Taleb week reading years 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 united-states funeral doe The best way to learn a language may be an episode of jail in a foreign country. Nassim Nicholas Taleb jail may country We should reward people, not ridicule them, for thinking the impossible. Nassim Nicholas Taleb rewards people thinking Most people are sceptical about the wrong things and gullible about the wrong things. Nassim Nicholas Taleb gullible wrong-things people 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 opposites people The tragedy of virtue is that the more obvious, boring, unoriginal, and sermonizing the proverb, the harder it is to implement. Nassim Nicholas Taleb virtue boring tragedy A washing machine needs constant maintenance. It doesn't want any harm. It wants tranquility, and you need someone to - you're not going to harm it by continuously monitoring it and adjusting it. Nassim Nicholas Taleb maintenance machines needs Also, it's good to have more than one profession, in case your own profession goes out of style. A Wall Street trader who's also a belly dancer will do a lot better than a trader who winds up driving a taxi. Nassim Nicholas Taleb wall dancing wind The opposite of fragile is something that gains from disorder. Nassim Nicholas Taleb robust gains opposites For the classics philosophical insight was the product of a life of leisure; for me a life of leisure is the product of philosophical insight. Nassim Nicholas Taleb leisure philosophical insight What kills me makes others stronger. Nassim Nicholas Taleb kill-me stronger 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 fragility new-york order We cannot truly plan, because we do not understand the future-but this is not necessarily a bad news. We could plan while bearing in mind such limitations. It just takes guts. Nassim Nicholas Taleb future news mind Modernity widened the distance between the sensational and the relevant. Nassim Nicholas Taleb sensational relevant distance I suspect the I.Q., SAT, and school grades are tests designed by nerds so they can get high scores in order to call each other intelligent...Smart and wise people who score low on IQ tests, or patently intellectually defective ones, like the former U.S. president George W. Bush, who score high on them (130), are testing the test and not the reverse. Nassim Nicholas Taleb smart wise school
