179 quotes
A competitive athlete is painful to look at; trying hard to become an animal rather than a man, he will never be as fast as a cheetah or as strong as an ox.
The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)
We learn the most from fools ... yet we pay them back with the worst ingratitude.
The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)
Economics cannot digest the idea that the collective (and the aggregate) are disproportionately less predictable than individuals.
The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)
The main problem with statistics is statisticians.
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)
Probability is a liberal art; it is a child of skepticism, not a tool for people with calculators on their belts to satisfy their desire to produce fancy calculations and certainties.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007)
The more data we have, the more likely we are to drown in it.
Fooled by Randomness (2001)
I reject a sole time series of the past as an indication of future performance; I need a lot more than data.
Fooled by Randomness (2001)
Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur.
The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)
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)
Seeing the psychologist Steven Pinker making pronouncements about things intellectual has a similar effect to encountering a drive-in Burger King while hiking in the middle of a national park.
Skin in the Game (2018)
There is a saying that bad traders divorce their spouse sooner than abandon their positions. Loyalty to ideas is not a good thing for traders, scientists - or anyone.
Fooled by Randomness (2001)
But it remains the case that you know what is wrong with a lot more confidence than you know what is right.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007)
I have two ways of learning from history: from the past, by reading the elders; and from the future, thanks to my Monte Carlo toy.
Fooled by Randomness (2001)
We tend to use knowledge as therapy.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007)
The fool generalizes the particular; the nerd particularizes the general; ... the wise does neither.
The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)
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)
If you can't spontaneously detect (without analyzing) the difference between the sacred and profane, you'll never know what religion means. You will also never figure out what we commonly call art. You will never understand anything.
The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)