782 Quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

People have the problem of denial. This is one of the things I learned in Lebanon. Everybody who left Beirut when the war started, including my parents, said, 'Oh, its temporary.' It lasted 17 years! People tend to underestimate the gravity of these situations. That's how they work.

Simplicity is not so simple to attain.

An idea starts to be interesting when you get scared of taking it to its logical conclusion.

Injecting some confusion stabilizes the system.

The grandchildren should not bear the debts of the grandparents.

When some systems are stuck in a dangerous impasse, randomness and only randomness can unlock them and set them free.

Remember that you are a Black Swan.

To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week's newspapers.

I'm in favour of religion as a tamer of arrogance. For a Greek Orthodox, the idea of God as creator outside the human is not God in God's terms. My God isn't the God of George Bush.