Quote

We should reward people, not ridicule them, for thinking the impossible.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: September 11
Author
Economist
Essayist
Mathematician
Philosopher
Statistician
University Teacher
Writer
Nassim Nicholas Najib Taleb
Nassim Taleb
Ridicule
Reward
Rewards
Impossible
Thinking
People

More quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Image
When you develop your opinions on the basis of weak evidence, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts these opinions, even if this new information is obviously more accurate.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
An option hides where we don't want it to hide.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or incentives for skill.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Never ask anyone for their opinion, forecast, or recommendation. Just ask them what they have—or don’t have—in their portfolio.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
I'm in favour of religion as a tamer of arrogance. For a Greek Orthodox, the idea of God as creator outside the human is not God in God's terms. My God isn't the God of George Bush.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
But they never notice the following inconsistency: this so-called worst-case event, when it happened, exceeded the worst case at the time.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
I always remind myself that what one observes is at best a combination of variance and returns, not just returns.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
The inability to predict outliers implies the inability to predict the course of history
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
We should ban banks from risk-taking because society is going to pay the price.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Another definition of modernity: conversations can be more and more completely reconstructed with clips from other conversations taking place at the same time on the planet.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
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.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
It does not matter how frequently something succeeds if failure is too costly to bear.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
If you roll dice, you know that the odds are one in six that the dice will come up on a particular side. So you can calculate the risk. But, in the stock market, such computations are bull - you don't even know how many sides the dice have!
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Charm is the ability to insult people without offending them nerdiness the reverse
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
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'.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
I don't know anyone on Wall Street who goes to work every day thinking of anything but how to increase their bonus.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Daily news and sugar confuse our system in the same manner.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
If humans fight the last war, nature fights the next one.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
When you ask people, 'What's the opposite of fragile?,' they tend to say robust, resilient, adaptable, solid, strong. That's not it. The opposite of fragile is something that gains from disorder.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
The psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer has a simple heuristic. Never ask the doctor what you should do. Ask him what he would do if he were in your place. You would be surprised at the difference
Nassim Nicholas Taleb