Quote

It's not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.

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
Idea
Forecast
Someone
Forecasts
Ideas
Tease
Take
Ties
Good
Wearing
People
Seriously
Possible
Knowledge

More quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Image
By setting oneself totally free of constraints, free of thoughts, free of this debilitating activity called work, free of efforts, elements hidden in the texture of reality start staring at you then mysteries that you never thought existed emerge in front of your eyes.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
You want to favor systems that benefit from error, disorder, variability and things like that. You want to favor these systems and unfortunately, when - there's something I call the Soviet Illusion. The more the government becomes intrusive, the more things have to follow a script, and it can't handle this kind of system.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
If you're going to fail, you'd rather fail early than fail late in general.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
When you beat up someone physically, you get excercise and stress relief when you assault him verbally on the Internet, you just harm yourself.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Few understand that procrastination is our natural defense, letting things take care of themselves and exercise their antifragility it results from some ecological or naturalistic wisdom, and is not always bad - at an existential level, it is my body rebelling against its entrapment. It is my soul fighting the Procrustean bed of modernity.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Forecasting by bureaucrats tends to be used for anxiety relief rather than for adequate policy making.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Go to parties. You can't even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Anything that provides you with very, very stable income, very stable conditions, maybe generally stable, that often, it masks real risks, risks of blow-ups.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
The fool generalizes the particular the nerd particularizes the general some do both and the wise does neither
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Never take advice from someone wearing a tie.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
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
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
A competitive athlete is painful to look at trying hard to become an animal rather than a man, he will never be as fast as a cheetah or as strong as an ox.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Private equity has absolutely no reason to exist. The private equity holder has all the upside and the banks all the downside.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
They are born, put in a box they go home to live in a box they study by ticking boxes they go to what is called work in a box, where they sit in their cubicle box they drive to the grocery store in a box to buy food in a box they talk about thinking outside the box and when they die they are put in a box.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
If I could predict what my day would exactly look like, I would feel a little bit dead.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
The American people will eventually get hurt by this accumulated deficit. That's the problem. We have too much deficit. We have to find a solution.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
People used to wear ordinary clothes weekdays, and formal attire on Sunday. Today it is the exact reverse.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
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
Image
Globalization has created this interlocking fragility. At no time in the history of the universe has the cancellation of a Christmas order in New York meant layoffs in China.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
It is also naïve empiricism to provide, in support of some argument, series of eloquent confirmatory quotes by dead authorities. By searching, you can always find someone who made a well-sounding statement that confirms your point of view and, on every topic, it is possible to find another dead thinker who said the exact opposite.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb