Skip to content

For me, history is of use... by being able to steal the ideas of others and leverage them, correct the mental defect that seems to block my ability to learn from others.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (2001)

Another quote →

Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (2001) Three: A Mathematical Meditation on History — Fun in My Attic — Denigration of History
Work: Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets, 2001
Source quality: Source identified Names the work or year, but without an exact location.

More by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The twentieth century was the bankruptcy of the social utopia; the twenty-first will be that of the technological one.

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

Just as dyed hair makes older men less attractive, it is what you do to hide your weaknesses that makes them repugnant.

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

A man is honorable in proportion to the personal risks he takes for his opinion.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

Social science means inventing a certain brand of human we can understand.

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

The tragedy of virtue is that the more obvious, boring, unoriginal, and sermonizing the proverb, the harder it is to implement.

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

Much of aging comes from a misunderstanding of the effect of comfort.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)

You want to be yourself, idiosyncratic; the collective (school, rules, jobs, technology) wants you generic to the point of castration.

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

What fools call “wasting time” is most often the best investment.

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

All Nassim Nicholas Taleb quotes →

Topics

History

More quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Ethical man accords his profession to his beliefs, instead of according his beliefs to his profession.

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

An idea starts to be interesting when you get scared of taking it to its logical conclusion.

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits.

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week’s newspapers.

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

All Nassim Nicholas Taleb quotes →

You may also like

A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love (1973)

History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

James Joyce Ulysses (1922)

If we don’t care about our past we can’t have very much hope for our future.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past, — so good night!

Thomas Jefferson

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Nassim Nicholas Taleb (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.