Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a renowned philosopher, statistician, risk analyst, and author. He is the author of several influential books, including “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,” “The Skin In The Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life, and “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.” He is best known for his work in risk and uncertainty and his contributions to studying complex systems and decision-making. Taleb continues to write and speak on a wide range of topics, including risk, decision-making, and the impact of technology on society. Here are the 29 best Nassim Taleb quotes from his books.
12 Quotes From Black Swan
#1 “Perhaps the wise one is the one who knows that he cannot see things far away.”- Nassim Taleb
#2 “We do not spontaneously learn that we don’t learn that we don’t learn.” – Nassim Taleb
#3 “Luck is more important than skill.” – Nassim Taleb
#4 “Everybody knows that you need more prevention than treatment, but few reward acts of prevention.”- Nassim Taleb
#5 “Sometimes a lot of data can be meaningless; at other times one single piece of information can be very meaningful.”- Nassim Taleb
#6 “Many people are married to their ideas all the way to the grave…..Science is great but individual scientists are dangerous…Science evolves from funeral to funeral.”- Nassim Taleb
#7 “It is not what you are telling people, it is how you are saying it.”- Nassim Taleb
#8 “The wise man listens to the meaning(the signal), the fool only gets the noise.”- Nassim Taleb
#9 “The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know.”- Nassim Taleb
#10 “The idea that you can actually predict most events is a dangerous illusion.” – Nassim Taleb
#11 “The more we study the past, the more we realize how little we know about the future.” – Nassim Taleb
#12 “The future is not predictable, but it is full of opportunities for those who can spot them.” – Nassim Taleb
10 Quotes From Skin In The Game
#13 “What matters isn’t what a person has or doesn’t have; it is what he or she is afraid of losing.” – Nassim Taleb
#14 “If you do not take risks for your opinion, you’re nothing.” – Nassim Taleb
#15 “Avoid taking advice from someone who gives advice for a living, unless there are also penalties for their bad advice.” – Nassim Taleb
#16 “Having exposure to the real world, with upside and downside, is the best (often the only) way to learn.”- Nassim Taleb
#17 “It is not the expert who is the best at what he does, but the one who is best at doing what he doesn’t do well.” – Nassim Taleb
#18 “In the absence of skin in the game, no one can ever be wrong: the problem of errors is shifted from the individual to the collective.”-Nassim Taleb
#19 “The only way to achieve long-term success is to have a long-term perspective and to be willing to suffer short-term pain.”- Nassim Taleb
#20 “Survival comes first, truth, understanding, and science later.”- Nassim Taleb
#21 “Virtue is what you do when nobody is looking. Virtue is not something you advertise.”- Nassim Taleb
#22 “Beware of the person who gives advice, telling you that a certain action on your part is good for you, while it is also good for him, while the harm to you doesn’t directly affect him.” – Nassim Taleb
7 Other Quotes From Nassim Taleb
#23 “Some people are only funny when they try to be serious.”- Nassim Taleb
#24 “You can only convince people who think they can benefit from being convinced.”- Nassim Taleb
#25 “If you lie to me, keep lying; don’t hurt me by suddenly telling the truth.”- Nassim Taleb
#26 “Love without sacrifice is like theft”- Nassim Taleb
#27 “They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status – but rarely for your wisdom.”- Nassim Taleb
#28 “The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” – Nassim Taleb
#29 “Abundance is harder for us to handle than scarcity.”- Nassim Taleb
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