Quote

Only in recent history has working hard signaled pride rather than shame for lack of talent, finesse and, mostly, sprezzatura .

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
Lack
Shame
Pride
Talent
Working
Signaled
Rather
Finesse
History
Recent
Hard
Mostly

More quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Image
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.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Cumulative errors depend largely on the big surprises, the big opportunities. Not only do economic, financial, and political predictors miss them, but they are quite ashamed to say anything outlandish to their clients and yet events, it turns out, are almost always outlandish.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Realism is punishing. Probabilistic skepticism is worse.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Read books are far less valuable than unread ones.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
There are systems that use failure as fuel for improvement, where the cost of failure is small.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Karl Marx, a visionary, figured out that you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
If you are in banking and lending, surprise outcomes are likely to be negative for you.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Economic life should be definancialised. We should learn not to use markets as storehouses of value: they do not harbour the certainties that normal citizens require. Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control).
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market alow you to put there.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
The same past data can confirm a theory and its exact opposite! If you survive until tomorrow, it could mean that either a) you are more likely to be immortal or b) that you are closer to death.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
We glorify those who left their names in history books at the expense of those contributors about whom our books are silent. We humans are not just a superficial race - we are a very unfair one.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut, and don't ask an academic if what he does is relevant.
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
It is often the mistakes of others that benefit the rest of us and, sadly, not them ... For the antifragile, harm from errors should be less than the benefits.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
I want to live happily in a world I don’t understand.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
It was obvious that their profits were simply cash borrowed from destiny with some random payback time.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
The twentieth century was the bankruptcy of the social utopia the twenty-first will be that of the technological one.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Life is a tightrope between two errors: generalizing the wrong particular and particularizing the wrong general.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
There is no effective difference between guessing a variable that is not random, but for which information is partial or deficient, and a random one. In this sense, guessing (what I don't know, but what someone else may know) and predicting (what has not taken place yet) are the same thing.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb