Home / Quotes / Quote by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Quote by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or "incentives" for skill.”

Quote by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Book:The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility

Work

The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility

This second edition of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's influential work expands on the concept of the Black Swan—an event that is highly improbable, carries extreme impact, and is rationalized in hindsight. The book examines how such events dominate our world, from financial crashes to technological breakthroughs, and critiques the limitations of standard statistical tools and human cognitive biases in anticipating them. The updated edition includes new material on fragility, robustness, and antifragility, offering a deeper framework for navigating uncertainty and randomness in complex systems. more

Author

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a renowned author, scholar, and thinker whose unique perspective and profound insights have had a wide-reaching impact in fields such as finance, statistics, and philosophy. He is best known for his books 'The Black Swan' and 'Fooled by Randomness', which have explored the nature of uncertainty, risk, and probability theory. more

You May Also Like

“Cumulative errors depend largely on the big surprises, the big opportunities. Not only do economic, financial, and political predictors miss them, but they are quite ashamed to say anything outlandish to their clients and yet events, it turns out, are almost always outlandish.”

Bigs Political Turns Opportunity Economic Missing Events Depends Errors Surprise Financial Ashamed Clients Say Anything Cumulative Outlandish Big Surprises

Book:The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility

Source: The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility

“Don't cross a river if it is four feet deep on average.”

Ifs Four Feet Rivers Crosses Average

Book:The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility

Source: The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility

“It's harder to say 'no' when you really mean it.”

Mean Harder Really Mean

Author:Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Modernity needs to understand that being rich and becoming rich are not mathematically, personally, socially, and ethically the same thing.”

Needs Rich Becoming Modernity Being Rich

Book:The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

“Older people are most beautiful when they have what is lacking in the young: poise, erudition, wisdom, phronesis, and this post-heroic absence of agitation.”

People Beautiful Young Absence Posts Heroic Lacking Agitation Older People Poise Erudition

Book:The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

“They are born, put in a box; they go home to live in a box; they study by ticking boxes; they go to what is called "work" in a box, where they sit in their cubicle box; they drive to the grocery store in a box to buy food in a box; they talk about thinking "outside the box"; and when they die they are put in a box.”

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

“Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God, as can be your own.”

God Home Eye Remember Rights Winter Humble Snow Hills Village Afghanistan Almighty Savages Sanctity Almighty God Sanctity Of Life Winter Snow

Author:William E. Gladstone

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

Want School Jobs Technology Being Yourself Collectives Generic Castration

Book:Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile

Source: Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile

“The sucker's trap is when you focus on what you know and what others don't know, rather than the reverse.”

Knows Focus Reverse Traps Sucker

Book:The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

“It takes extraordinary wisdom and self-control to accept that many things have a logic we do not understand that is smarter than our own.”

Self Accepting Logic Extraordinary Self Control Smarter

Book:Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile

Source: Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile