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Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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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
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More quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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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
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Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same the antifragile gets better.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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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.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Being an economist is the least ethical profession, closer to charlatanism than any science.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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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.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Most so-called writers keep writing and writing with the hope, some day, to find something to say.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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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
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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.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Read books are far less valuable than unread ones.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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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.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Only in recent history has working hard signaled pride rather than shame for lack of talent, finesse and, mostly, sprezzatura .
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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It is a sign of weakness to avoid showing signs of weakness.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Never ask a trader if he is profitable: you can easily see it in his gesture and gait.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Also, it's good to have more than one profession, in case your own profession goes out of style. A Wall Street trader who's also a belly dancer will do a lot better than a trader who winds up driving a taxi.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Please, don’t drive a school bus blindfolded.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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The number of managers with great track records in a given market depends far more on the number of people who started in the investment business (in place of going to dental school), rather than on their ability to produce profits.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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I've debated many economists who claim to specialize in risk and probability: when one takes them slightly outside their narrow focus, but within the discipline of probability, they fall apart, with the disconsolate face of a gym rat in front of a gangster hit man.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Paul Krugman is a danger to society!
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society the empiricist and imbecile-proof one, or even better, a rationalist-proof one.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb