Quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

About Nassim Nicholas Taleb:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, and risk analyst, whose work focuses on problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty. His 2007 book The Black Swan was described in a review by the Sunday Times as one of the twelve most influential books since World War II.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The next time you experience a blackout, take some solace by looking at the sky. You will not recognize it.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Individuals should think about the worst-case scenarios and plan for them. The world will be crazier than you think it will be. Put money away, and then you can live with much more freedom.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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 impro...

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Banking is a very treacherous business because you don't realize it is risky until it is too late. It is like calm waters that deliver huge storms.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We have this culture of financialization. People think they need to make money with their savings rather with their own business. So you end up with dentists who are more traders than dentists. A dentist should drill teeth and use whatever he does in...

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We are victims of the post-Enlightenment view that the world functions like a sophisticated machine, to be understood like a textbook engineering problem and run by wonks. In other words, like a home appliance, not like the human body.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Most so-called writers keep writing and writing with the hope, some day, to find something to say.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Corporations take the humanity out of trade - they take the happiness out and replace it with something that is ugly.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I drive a hybrid, moving into an electric car. I only drink tap water, never consume food that's travelled.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Globalization has created this interlocking fragility. At no time in the history of the universe has the cancellation of a Christmas order in New York meant layoffs in China.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We know from chaos theory that even if you had a perfect model of the world, you'd need infinite precision in order to predict future events. With sociopolitical or economic phenomena, we don't have anything like that.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The people I go after are the false experts, those who do not accept the limits of their knowledge.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

It might be useful to be able to predict war. But tension does not necessarily lead to war, but often to peace and to denouement.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We humans lack imagination, to the point of not even knowing what tomorrow's important things will look like.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I've been telling anyone willing to listen that banks have a tendency to sit on time bombs while convincing themselves that they are conservative and nonvolatile.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

What we do today has nothing to do with capitalism or socialism. It is a crony type of system that transfers money to the coffers of bureaucrats.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Never take advice from anyone in a tie. They'll bankrupt you. Don't ask a general for advice on war, and don't ask a broker for advice on money.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nature builds things that are antifragile. In the case of evolution, nature uses disorder to grow stronger. Occasional starvation or going to the gym also makes you stronger, because you subject your body to stressors and gain from them.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Author Bio

  • NameNassim Nicholas Taleb
  • DescriptionAuthor, philosopher, statistician, trader
  • BornJanuary 1, 1960
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPhilosopher; Essayist; Mathematician; Writer