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

More quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Image
I lift heavy weights and sprint, but I am so bad at it that I develop severe injuries.
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
Image
Asking science to explain life and vital matters is equivalent to asking a grammarian to explain poetry.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
I suppose that the main benefit of being rich (over just being independent) is to be able to despise rich people (a good concentration of whom you find in glitzy ski resorts) without any sour grapes. It is even sweeter when these farts don't know that you are richer than they are.
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
Someone bemoaned that there were so few women in economics. But there are also very few men in economics.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Success is becoming in middle adulthood what you dreamed to be in late childhood.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
They think that intelligence is about noticing things are relevant (detecting patterns) in a complex world, intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant (avoiding false patterns)
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
What is nonmeasurable and nonpredictable will remain nonmeasurable and nonpredictable ... no matter how much hate mail I get.
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
A verbal threat is the most authentic certificate of impotence.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Injecting some confusion stabilizes the system.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
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
Image
The fool generalizes the particular the nerd particularizes the general some do both and the wise does neither
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
Probability is not about the odds, but about the belief in the existence of an alternative outcome, cause, or motive.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Image
You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits.
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
My nightmare scenario is that the government saves Citibank once again, as well as the other banks, and business resumes as usual. Then, the next time the system breaks, it breaks much, much bigger.
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