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 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.”

“Stoicism is about the domestication of emotions, not their elimination.”

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

“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.”

“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.”