The only definition of rationality that I’ve found that is practically, empirically, and mathematically rigorous is the following: what is rational is that which allows for survival. Unlike modern theories by psychosophasters, it maps to the classical way of thinking. Anything that hinders one’s survival at an individual, collective, tribal, or general level is, to me, irrational.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

Remember that nobody accepts randomness in his own success, only his failure.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

If it costs you your peace, it’s too expensive.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Once again, I am not saying that we need to stop globalization and prevent travel. We just need to be aware of the side effects, the tradeoffs – and few people are. I see the risks of a very strange acute virus spreading throughout the planet.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We humans are the victims of an asymmetry in the perception of random events. We attribute our successes to our skills, and our failures to external events outside our control, namely to randomness. We feel responsible for the good stuff, but not for the bad.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Sticking up for truth when it is unpopular is far more of a virtue, because it costs you something – your reputation.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Practitioners don’t write; they do. Birds fly and those who lecture them are the ones who write their story. So it is easy to see that history is truly written by losers with time on their hands and a protected academic position.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

You attribute your successes to skills, but your failures to randomness. This explains why these scientists attributed their failures to the “ten sigma” rare event, indicative of the thought that they were right but that luck played against them. Why? It is a human heuristic that makes us actually believe so in order not to kill our self-esteem and keep us going against adversity.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Scranton showed that we have been building and using jet engines in a completely trial-and-error experiential manner, without anyone truly understanding the theory. Builders needed the original engineers who knew how to twist things to make the engine work. Theory came later, in a lame way, to satisfy the intellectual bean counter.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

If you hear advice from a grandmother or elders, odds are that it works 90 percent of the time. On the other hand, in part because of scientism and academic prostitution, in part because the world is hard, if you read anything by psychologists and behavioral scientists, odds are that it works at less than 10 percent, unless it is has also been covered by the grandmother and the classics, in which case why would you need a psychologist?

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Our minds are wonderful explanation machines, capable of making sense out of almost anything, capable of mounting explanations for all manner of phenomena, and generally incapable of accepting the idea of unpredictability.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, the generator of history. There is a fundamental incompleteness in your grasp of such events, since you do not see what’s inside the box, how the mechanisms work.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Paradoxically, many government interventions and social policies end up hurting the weak and consolidating the established.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In this world, you should always be suspicious of the knowledge you derive from data.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

True success is exiting some rat race to modulate one’s activities for peace of mind.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

If you lose we will be equals and stay friends forever, and if you win you’ll take my precious blue flower as a prize and we stay friends forever. How lucky you are!

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Most of what they call humility is successfully disguised arrogance.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Our minds are not quite designed to understand how the world works, but, rather, to get out of trouble rapidly and have progeny.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Usually, what we call a “good listener” is someone with skillfully polished indifference.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Atheism or materialism means treating the dead as if they were unborn, I won’t.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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