782 Quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The story of the wheel also illustrates the point of this chapter: both governments and universities have done very, very little for innovation and discovery, precisely because, in addition to their blinding rationalism, they look for the complicated, the lurid, the newsworthy, the narrated, the scientistic, and the grandiose, rarely for the wheel on the suitcase. Simplicity, I realized, does not lead to laurels.

Start by being nice to every person you meet. But if someone tries to exercise power over you, exercise power over him.

Another way to view it: the iatrogenics is in the patient, not in the treatment. If the patient is close to death, all speculative treatments should be encouraged – no holds barred. Conversely, if the patient is near healthy, then Mother Nature should be the doctor.

Most people fear being without audiovisual stimulation because they are too repetitive when they think and imagine things on their own.

Failure saves lives. In the airline industry, every time a plane crashes the probability of the next crash is lowered by that. The Titanic saved lives because we're building bigger and bigger ships. So these people died, but we have effectively improved the safety of the system, and nothing failed in vain.

What fools call wasting time is most often the best investment.

In poor countries, officials receive explicit bribes; in D.C. they get the sophisticated, implicit, unspoken promise to work for large corporations.

The excess energy released from overreaction to setbacks is what innovates!

Light control works; close control leads to overreaction, sometimes causing the machinery to break into pieces.