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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

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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
Economic
Errors
Outlandish
Almost
Miss
Cumulative
Turns
Surprise
Surprises
Opportunity
Financial
Clients
Bigs
Missing
Largely
Political
Depends
Depend
Anything
Events
Ashamed
Always
Quite
Opportunities
Predictors

More quotes by 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.
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Every social association that is not face-to-face is injurious to your health.
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History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, [...] The generator of historical events is different from the events themselves, much as the minds of the gods cannot be read just by witnessing their deeds.
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It is my great hope someday, to see science and decision makers rediscover what the ancients have always known. Namely that our highest currency is respect.
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Let me be more aggressive: we are largely better at doing than we are at thinking, thanks to antifragility. I’d rather be dumb and antifragile than extremely smart and fragile, any time.
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The bonus for bankers fragilizes the system. Someone has the upside at the expense of others.
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We should probably stop trading derivatives, anything more complex than regular options ... I am an options trader, and I don't understand options. How do you want a regulator to understand them?
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Debt is a mistake between lender and borrower, and both should suffer.
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Greatness starts with the replacement of hatred with polite disdain.
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We should reward people, not ridicule them, for thinking the impossible.
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Success is becoming in middle adulthood what you dreamed to be in late childhood.
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A man without a heroic bent starts dying at the age of thirty.
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When we want to do something while unconsciously certain to fail, we seek advice so we can blame someone else for the failure.
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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.
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Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.
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The difference between slaves in Roman and Ottoman days and today's employees is that slaves did not need to flatter their boss.
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The twentieth century was the bankruptcy of the social utopia the twenty-first will be that of the technological one.
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The worst side effect of wealth is the social associations it forces on its victims, as people with big houses end up socializing with other people with big houses.
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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.
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What fools call wasting time is most often the best investment.
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