quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"When you develop your opinions on the basis of weak evidence, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts these opinions, even if this new information is obviously more accurate."
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable)

"The observation of the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments, or to admire a man's happiness that may yet, in course of time, suffer change. For the uncertain future has yet to come, with all variety of future; and to him only to whom the divinity has [guaranteed] continued happiness until the end we may call happy."
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets)

"Doctors most commonly get mixed up between absence of evidence and evidence of abense"
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"Things always become obvious after the fact"
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market alow you to put there."
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable)

"Scientists may be in the business of laughing at their predecessors, but owing to an array of human mental dispositions, few realize that someone will laugh at their beliefs in the (disappointingly near) future."
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"Maximum of an average is necessarily less volatile than the average maximum"
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"Probability and expectation are not the same. Its probability and probability times the pay off."
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb