"When some systems are stuck in a dangerous impasse, randomness and only randomness can unlock them and set them free."
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Quote collection
Nassim Nicholas Taleb quotes (page 7 of 18)
342 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"If I could predict what my day would exactly look like, I would feel a little bit dead."
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"Is the economy something organic or is it something engineered? I think it's closer to the organic. You harm it by artificially suppressing volatility in it."
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"A country's assets reside in the tinkerers, the hobbyists, and the risk-takers."
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"Injecting some confusion stabilizes the system."
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"Weak men act to satisfy their needs, stronger men their duties."
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"You need a story to displace a story."
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"The best philosophers were not academics, but had another job, so their philosophy was not corrupted by careerism."
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"Just as being nice to the arrogant is no better than being arrogant toward the nice, being accommodating toward anyone committing a nefarious action condones it."
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"The characteristic feature of the loser is to bemoan, in general terms, mankind's flaws, biases, contradictions, and irrationality - without exploiting them for fun and profit"
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"Don't disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don't understand their logic. Don't pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific 'evidence'."
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"Much of aging comes from a misunderstanding of the effect of comfort."
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"By all means, avoid words—threats, complaints, justification, narratives, reframing, attempts to win arguments, supplications; avoid words!"
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"A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point."
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"Alan Greenspan is unskilled; you don't take the unskilled seriously."
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"He who has never sinned is less reliable than he who has only sinned once. And someone who has made plenty of errors-though never the same error more than once-is more reliable than someone who has never made any."
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"My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves and the quality of their knowledge too seriously and those who don't have the guts to sometimes say: I don't know."
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"Scientists don't know what they are talking about when they talk about religion. Religion has nothing to do with belief, and I don't believe it has any negative impact on people's lives outside of intolerance. Why do I go to church? It's like asking, why did you marry that woman? You make up reasons, but it's probably just smell. I love the smell of candles. It's an aesthetic thing."
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"If something is going on, I hear about it. I like to talk to people, I socialise. Television is a waste of time. Human contact is what matters."
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"Never ask a trader if he is profitable: you can easily see it in his gesture and gait."
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