782 Quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

...the most intriguing aspect of evolution is that it only works because of antifragility; it is in love with stressors, randomness, uncertainty, and disorder – while individual organisms are relatively fragile, the gene pool takes advantages of shocks to enhance its fitness.

Proclus was known to repeat the metaphor that statues are carved by subtraction.. Michelangelo was asked how he carved the statue of David, his answer as: "It's simple. I just remove everything that is not David.

I have never had personal debt and never will.

Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.

Stoicism is about the *domestication* of emotions, not their elimination.

Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love.

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

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

Another definition of modernity: conversations can be more and more completely reconstructed with clips from other conversations taking place at the same time on the planet.