Site uses cookies to provide basic functionality.

OK
Search Quotes tags
Query
Tags
Author
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 13 14 16 17 19 20 22 23 24 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 ▲ ▼
Link Quote Stars Tags Author
9311b25 The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with "Wow! Signore, professore dottore Eco, what a library you have ! How many of these books have you read?" and the others - a very small minority - who get the point that a private library is.. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
68565d1 The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with "Wow! Signore, professore dottore Eco, what a library you have ! How many of these books have you read?" and the others - a very small minority - who get the point that a private library is.. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
c6be5f6 Love without sacrifice is like theft marriage true-love relationships sacrifice love marriage-advice passive-aggressive passive-aggressiveness narcissists manipulation real-love narcissism Nassim Nicholas Taleb
ec58b9b 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
338e158 It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one. Those who have followed the assertive idiot rather than the introspective wise person have passed us some of their genes. This is apparent from a social pathology: psychopaths rally followers. herd-behavior economics Nassim Nicholas Taleb
ece1376 Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears women politics liars preachers sociopathology sociopaths narcissists manipulation narcissism politicians men-and-women Nassim Nicholas Taleb
8171253 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
c1aa4a7 The psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer has a simple heuristic. Never ask the doctor what you should do. Ask him what he would do if he were in your place. You would be surprised at the difference Nassim Nicholas Taleb
f3301d3 Some can be more intelligent than others in a structured environment--in fact school has a selection bias as it favors those quicker in such an environment, and like anything competitive, at the expense of performance outside it. Although I was not yet familiar with gyms, my idea of knowledge was as follows. People who build their strength using these modern expensive gym machines can lift extremely large weights, show great numbers and dev.. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
df9dc83 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
bafe4d1 If you have more than one reason to do something (choose a doctor or veterinarian, hire a gardener or an employee, marry a person, go on a trip), just don't do it. It does not mean that one reason is better than two, just that by invoking more than one reason you are trying to convince yourself to do something. Obvious decisions (robust to error) require no more than a single reason. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
ba4ea07 Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
bd7f3b5 If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry. poetry wisdom details autism wisdom-vs-nerds nerdiness intuition nerds nerd Nassim Nicholas Taleb
039008b What I learned on my own I still remember reading discovery learning education intelligence schooling thinking thought Nassim Nicholas Taleb
bffce45 They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status - but rarely for your wisdom. wisdom priorities wealth-and-virtues modern-values truths values Nassim Nicholas Taleb
66dd6a1 Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness. humor intelligence wisdom autism wisdom-vs-nerdiness sense-of-humor nerds nerd wit Nassim Nicholas Taleb
fe2d95f Remember that you are a Black Swan. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
9004430 The best way to measure the loss of intellectual sophistication - this "nerdification," to put it bluntly - is in the growing disappearance of sarcasm, as mechanic minds take insults a bit too literally." irony intellectual-sophistication post-ironic sophistication post-modern post-modernism nerdery reddit wisdom-vs-nerds nerdiness nerds nerd internet wit Nassim Nicholas Taleb
97ce4ad If there is something in nature you don't understand, odds are it makes sense in a deeper way that is beyond your understanding. So there is a logic to natural things that is much superior to our own. Just as there is a dichotomy in law: 'innocent until proven guilty' as opposed to 'guilty until proven innocent', let me express my rule as follows: what Mother Nature does is rigorous until proven otherwise; what humans and science do is flaw.. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
1091159 A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see empathy wisdom prophet intuition Nassim Nicholas Taleb
ecf9423 The minute I was bored with a book or a subject I moved to another one, instead of giving up on reading altogether - when you are limited to the school material and you get bored, you have a tendency to give up and do nothing or play hooky out of discouragement. The trick is to be bored with a specific book, rather than with the act of reading. So the number of the pages absorbed could grow faster than otherwise. And you find gold, so to s.. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
e449f40 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. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
f0c4410 Difficulty is what wakes up the genius Nassim Nicholas Taleb
d298040 Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
b087a67 The irony of the process of thought control: the more energy you put into trying to control your ideas and what you think about, the more your ideas end up controlling you. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
c9df7d0 Meditation is a way to be narcissistic without hurting anyone enlightenment narcissism self-absorption meditation self-realization self-improvement Nassim Nicholas Taleb
72533ee The curious mind embraces science; the gifted and sensitive, the arts; the practical, business; the leftover becomes an economist mind science economists expertise economics intellect Nassim Nicholas Taleb
f547d17 If you hear a "prominent" economist using the word 'equilibrium,' or 'normal distribution,' do not argue with him; just ignore him, or try to put a rat down his shirt." humor randomness Nassim Nicholas Taleb
a38e890 Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur post-modern post-modernism values-in-life modernity values Nassim Nicholas Taleb
fe1206c When you beat up someone physically, you get excercise and stress relief; when you assault him verbally on the Internet, you just harm yourself. civics playerhaters the-internet anger-management envy internet Nassim Nicholas Taleb
05980f3 You may never know what type of person someone is unless they are given opportunities to violate moral or ethical codes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
d3d7db6 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. library reading books Nassim Nicholas Taleb
da82d8b Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love; close enough on the surface but, to the nonsucker, not exactly the same thing education school Nassim Nicholas Taleb
616c9aa Suckers try to win arguments, nonsuckers try to win. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
c52fac3 Reality is far more vicious than Russian roulette. First, it delivers the fatal bullet rather infrequently, like a revolver that would have hundreds, even thousands of chambers instead of six. After a few dozen tries, one forgets about the existence of a bullet, under a numbing false sense of security. Second, unlike a well-defined precise game like Russian roulette, where the risks are visible to anyone capable of multiplying and dividing .. truth Nassim Nicholas Taleb
b6832e7 We tend to use knowledge as therapy. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
a92ec75 The biologist and intellectual E. O. Wilson was once asked what represented the most hindrance to the development of children; his answer was the soccer mom. He did not use the notion of the Procrustean bed, but he outlined it perfectly. His argument is that they repress children's natural biophilia, their love of living things. But the problem is more general; soccer moms try to eliminate the trial and error, the antifragility, from childr.. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
2cf6e78 The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know Nassim Nicholas Taleb
876bca2 My biggest problem with modernity may lie in the growing separation of the ethical and the legal court-system courts ethical-behaviour governement modern-society the-supreme-court modern-life modernity-is-a-sickness law-and-order corruption lawyers law ethics government modernity Nassim Nicholas Taleb
086e7b4 This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
00866a0 Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; it is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
6922ed1 I want to live happily in a world I don't understand. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
b17a952 The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds writing wisdom art-criticism music-criticism music-journalism critics knowledge writers insight Nassim Nicholas Taleb
0a6406f Karl Marx, a visionary, figured out that you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 13 14 16 17 19 20 22 23 24 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 ▲ ▼