Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

“A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.”

“Charm is the ability to insult people without offending them; nerdiness the reverse.”

“I've never met a rich nitpicker.”

“If you do something you don't like, it sort of corrupts your personality.”

“If you need others to know that you are doing well, you're not doing well.”

“If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.”

“Many people drive two miles to the gym in order to walk two miles on a treadmill. Just walk.”

“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.”

“Never take any advice from someone you didn't ask for advice.”

“Never take any financial advice from someone who has to work for a living.”

“People focus on role models; it is more effective to find anti-models - people you don't want to resemble when you grow up.”

“Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg didn't finish college. Too much emphasis is placed on formal education. I told my children not to worry about their grades but to enjoy learning.”

“The best researcher is the one who hates academia, the best politician the one who hates politics, best bureaucrat one who hates bureaucracy.”

“The market is a large movie theater with a small door.”

“The only thing a business school professor can teach you is how to become a business school professor.”

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”

“We tend to use knowledge as therapy.”

“When you have trial and error you outperform someone who knows because convexity matters a lot more than knowledge.”

“You will be civilized on the day you can spend a long period doing nothing, learning nothing, and improving nothing, without feeling the slightest amount of guilt.”

“Difficulty is what wakes up the genius.”

“He who has never sinned is less reliable than he who has only sinned once.”

“You may never know what type of person someone is unless they are given opportunities to violate moral or ethical codes.”

“Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost.”

“Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears.”

“Love without sacrifice is like theft.”

“Meditation is a way to be narcissistic without hurting anyone.”

“Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur.”

“The imagination of the genius vastly surpasses his intellect; the intellect of the academic vastly surpasses his imagination.”

“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.”

“They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status - but rarely for your wisdom.”