Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Love without sacrifice is like theft”

“Things always become obvious after the fact”

“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 si...”

“If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry.”

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

“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”

“Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.”

“A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see”

“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.”

“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything”

“It takes a huge investment in introspection to learn that the thirty or more hours spent “studying” the news last month neither had any predictive ability during your activities of that mont...”

“You cannot do anything with knowledge unless you know where it stops, and the costs of using it.”

“The curious mind embraces science; the gifted and sensitive, the arts; the practical, business; the leftover becomes an economist”

“True, our knowledge does grow, but it is threatened by greater increases in confidence, which make our increase in knowledge at the same time an increase in confusion, ignorance, and conceit...”

“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 mar...”

“What I learned on my own I still remember”

“The best philosophers were not academics, but had another job, so their philosophy was not corrupted by careerism.”

“When you ask people, 'What's the opposite of fragile?,' they tend to say robust, resilient, adaptable, solid, strong. That's not it. The opposite of fragile is something that gains from diso...”

“You will get the most attention from those who hate you. No friend, no admirer and no partner will flatter you with as much curiosity.”

“Capitalism is about adventurers who get harmed by their mistakes, not people who harm others with their mistakes.”