782 Quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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

My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves and the quality of their knowledge too seriously and those who don't have the guts to sometimes say: I don't know....

If I ask you to write down the last 4 digits of your social security number, and then take you out to lunch and ask you how many dentists there are in Manhattan, there's going to be a high correlation between those two numbers. What happens is that the number psychologically makes you feel confident.

A man without a heroic bent starts dying at the age of thirty.

Intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant.

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.

You will get the most attention from those who hate you. No friend, no admirer and no partner will flatter you with as much curiosity.

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.

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.