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Life is a tightrope between two errors: generalizing the wrong particular and particularizing the wrong general.

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
Life
Generalizing
Tightrope
Investing
Errors
General
Particular
Wrong
Two
Generalisation

More quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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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.
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Private equity has absolutely no reason to exist. The private equity holder has all the upside and the banks all the downside.
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When you write, you don't have the social constraints of having people in front of you, so you talk about abstract matters.
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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.
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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.
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Greatness starts with the replacement of hatred with polite disdain.
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I'd rather have the market tell us what - I'd rather have events precipitate events, rather than just sit there like passive people in Washington.
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Please, don’t drive a school bus blindfolded.
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An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows a journalist or consultant the opposite.
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It does not matter how frequently something succeeds if failure is too costly to bear.
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Banks have never made money in the history of banking, losing the equivalent of all their past profits periodically - while bankers strike it rich.
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Older people are most beautiful when they have what is lacking in the young: poise, erudition, wisdom, phronesis, and this post-heroic absence of agitation.
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People used to wear ordinary clothes weekdays, and formal attire on Sunday. Today it is the exact reverse.
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For the classics philosophical insight was the product of a life of leisure for me a life of leisure is the product of philosophical insight.
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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.
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Aesthetics, ethics, and many good things in humans are contagious.
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Daily news and sugar confuse our system in the same manner.
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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.
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Dress your best on your execution day. Be extremely courteous to your assistant when you lose money. Try not to blame others for your fate, even if they deserve blame. Never exhibit any self-pity. Do not complain.
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Read books are far less valuable than unread ones.
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