If you let markets – in general, my belief is that if you let markets give you information, they’ll give you the information rather than artificially prop up everything.
As countries get rich they start increasing education and the very educated people tend to not like trial and error, because they think they’re obligated to use the body of knowledge they have.
The grandchildren should not bear the debts of the grandparents.
Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.
Every social association that is not face-to-face is injurious to your health.
It’s not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.
People have the problem of denial. This is one of the things I learned in Lebanon. Everybody who left Beirut when the war started, including my parents, said, ‘Oh, its temporary.’ It lasted 17 years! People tend to underestimate the gravity of these situations. That’s how they work.
Never think that lack of variability is stability. Don’t confuse lack of volatility with stability, ever.
If something is going on, I hear about it. I like to talk to people, I socialise. Television is a waste of time. Human contact is what matters.
The classical man’s worst fear was inglorious death; the modern man’s worst fear is just death.
A system, artificially stabilized, and of course you have hidden risks under the surface, and you don’t know where the risks are.
When I trade, I don’t have an agency problem; I have my neck on the line. When a bank or banker trades, it’s not his neck on the line.
Modernity has replaced ethics with legalese, and the law can be gamed with a good lawyer.
Comfort makes you weaker. We need some variability, some stressors. Not too much, but just enough.
This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most.
A verbal threat is the most authentic certificate of impotence.
An idea starts to be interesting when you get scared of taking it to its logical conclusion.
To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week’s newspapers.
To become a philosopher, start by walking very slowly.
Procrastination is the soul rebelling against entrapment.