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Quotes from Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

born 1960 Lebanon

← All quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

36 quotes

I want to live happily in a world I don't understand.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

It is all about redundancy. Nature likes to overinsure itself.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is a risk, that it is a bad thing ...

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

Our greatest asset is the one we distrust the most: the built-in antifragility of certain risk-taking systems.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

If I could predict what my day would exactly look like, I would feel a little bit dead.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

We didn't get where we are thanks to the sissy notion of resilience.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

Simplicity is not so simple to attain.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

The worst side effect of wealth is the social associations it forces on its victims, as people with big houses end up socializing with other people with big houses.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

Just as being nice to the arrogant is no better than being arrogant toward the nice; being accommodating toward anyone committing a nefarious action condones it.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

What is nonmeasurable and nonpredictable will remain nonmeasurable and nonpredictable ... no matter how much hate mail I get.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

It is often the mistakes of others that benefit the rest of us—and, sadly, not them ... For the antifragile, harm from errors should be less than the benefits.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

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

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

There is no such thing as a failed soldier, dead or alive (unless he acted in a cowardly manner)—likewise there is no such thing as a failed entrepreneur or failed scientific researcher ...

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

[A] theory is a very dangerous thing to have.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

Compromising is condoning. The only modern dictum I follow one by George Santayana: A man is morally free when... he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity. This is not just an aim but an obligation.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

I suppose that the main benefit of being rich (over just being independent) is to be able to despise rich people (a good concentration of whom you find in glitzy ski resorts) without any sour grapes. It is even sweeter when these farts don't know that you are richer than they are.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Nassim Nicholas Taleb (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.