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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
Tightrope
Investing
Errors
General
Particular
Wrong
Two
Generalisation
Life
Generalizing

More quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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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
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Debt is a mistake between lender and borrower, and both should suffer.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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You want to be yourself, idiosyncratic the collective (school, rules, jobs, technology) wants you generic to the point of castration.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words 'impossible', 'never', 'too difficult' too often, drop him or her from your social network.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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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.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Injecting some confusion stabilizes the system.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society the empiricist and imbecile-proof one, or even better, a rationalist-proof one.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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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.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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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.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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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
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Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Never trust a journalist unless she's your mother.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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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
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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
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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
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What we do today has nothing to do with capitalism or socialism. It is a crony type of system that transfers money to the coffers of bureaucrats.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Modernity has replaced ethics with legalese, and the law can be gamed with a good lawyer.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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We know from chaos theory that even if you had a perfect model of the world, you'd need infinite precision in order to predict future events. With sociopolitical or economic phenomena, we don't have anything like that.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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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