"Being an economist is the least ethical profession, closer to charlatanism than any science."
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Quote collection
Nassim Nicholas Taleb quotes (page 17 of 18)
342 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Capitalism is about adventurers who get harmed by their mistakes, not people who harm others with their mistakes."
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"A washing machine needs constant maintenance. It doesn't want any harm. It wants tranquility, and you need someone to - you're not going to harm it by continuously monitoring it and adjusting it."
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"The best way to measure the loss of intellectual sophistication - this "nerdification," to put it bluntly - is in the growing disappearance of sarcasm, as mechanic minds take insults a bit too literally."
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"Switzerland is the perfect place where you have volatility at a municipal level that nothing up top - small units competing with each other."
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"I'd rather have the market tell us what - I'd rather have events precipitate events, rather than just sit there like passive people in Washington."
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"Modernity needs to understand that being rich and becoming rich are not mathematically, personally, socially, and ethically the same thing."
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"Political life loves some volatility."
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"He who has never sinned is less reliable than he who has only sinned once."
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"I don't read the papers; I stopped reading the papers. I read the papers only during periods of crisis, and I think papers are too long on a regular day and too short days when we have a crisis."
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"I don't know anyone on Wall Street who goes to work every day thinking of anything but how to increase their bonus."
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"I drive a hybrid, moving into an electric car. I only drink tap water, never consume food that's travelled."
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"But they never notice the following inconsistency: this so-called worst-case event, when it happened, exceeded the worst case at the time."
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"I no longer care about the financial system. I gave them my roadmap. OK? Thanks, bye. I've no idea what's going on. I'm disconnected. I'm totally disengaged."
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"Luck is the grand equalizer."
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"All of technology, really, is about maximizing free options."
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"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 the stock market for entertainment."
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"Please, don’t drive a school bus blindfolded."
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"People who forecast simply because "that's my job," knowing pretty well that their forecast is ineffectual, are not what I would call ethical. What they do is no different from repeating lies simply because "it's my job.""
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"When you write, you don't have the social constraints of having people in front of you, so you talk about abstract matters."
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