"A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see"
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Quote collection
Nassim Nicholas Taleb quotes (page 15 of 18)
342 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation."
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"Writing is the art of repeating oneself without anyone noticing."
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"The book is the only medium left that hasn't been corrupted by the profane."
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"A verbal threat is the most authentic certificate of impotence."
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"Education makes the wise slightly wiser, but it makes the fool vastly more dangerous."
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"I'm a private intellectual, not a public one."
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"History doesn't crawl; it leaps."
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"If I ask you to write down the last 4 digits of your social security number, and then take you out to lunch and ask you how many dentists there are in Manhattan, there's going to be a high correlation between those two numbers. What happens is that the number psychologically makes you feel confident."
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"Aesthetics, ethics, and many good things in humans are contagious."
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"The government-sponsored institution Fannie Mae, when I look at its risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry: their large staff of scientists deemed these events "unlikely.""
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"What they call "play" (gym, travel, sports) looks like work."
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"Economics make homeopath and alternative healers look empirical and scientific."
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"Scientists may be in the business of laughing at their predecessors, but owing to an array of human mental dispositions, few realize that someone will laugh at their beliefs in the (disappointingly near) future."
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"But it remains the case that you know what is wrong with a lot more confidence than you know what is right."
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"A good rule of thumb is as follows: If the numbers come from somebody wearing a tie (Wall Street economist or analyst, industry public relations department, captive think tank academic and so on), you ought to be very skeptical. By design messages from these people are intended to move markets, move merchandise and/or move public policy and are not a comment on the state of the physical universe."
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"Don't read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants... or (again) parties."
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"Financial institutions have been merging into a smaller number of very large banks. Almost all banks are interrelated. So the financial ecology is swelling into gigantic, incestuous, bureaucratic banks-when one fails, they all fall. We have moved from a diversified ecology of small banks, with varied lending policies, to a more homogeneous framework of firms that all resemble one another. True, we now have fewer failures, but when they occur... I shiver at the thought."
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"Never trust a journalist unless she's your mother."
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"You never win an argument until they attack your person."
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