782 Quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Learning is rooted in repetition and convexity, meaning that the reading of a single text twice is more profitable than reading two different things once.

If the past, by bringing surprises, did not resemble the past previous to it (what I call the past's past), then why should our future resemble our current past?

The notion of future mixed with chance, not a deterministic extension of your perception of the past, is a mental operation that our mind cannot perform.

These were the days before I decided to climb up the mountain, speak slowly and in a priestly tone, and try shaming people rather than insulting them.

Charm is the ability to insult people without offending them; nerdiness the reverse

If your private life conflicts with your intellectual opinion, it cancels your intellectual ideas, not your private life.

The next time someone pesters you with unneeded advice, gently remind him of the fate of the monk whom Ivan the Terrible put to death for delivering uninvited (and moralizing) advice. It works as a short-term cure.

True, our knowledge does grow, but it is threatened by greater increases in confidence, which make our increase in knowledge at the same time an increase in confusion, ignorance, and conceit.

People focus on role models; it is more effective to find antimodels - people you don't want to resemble when you grow up