782 Quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Rationalism crashes in the tails.

In social policy, when we provide a safety net, it should be designed to help people take more entrepreneurial risks, not to turn them into dependents. This doesn't mean that we should be callous to the underprivileged.

Never, never, never think - that's one lesson you should have in life. Never think that lack of variability is stability.

The central idea in The Black Swan is that: rare events cannot be estimated from empirical observation since they are rare.

Suckers try to win arguments, nonsuckers try to win.

Never think that lack of variability is stability. Don't confuse lack of volatility with stability, ever.

The inability to predict outliers implies the inability to predict the course of history

An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist or consultant the opposite.

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.