Many people keep deploring the low level of formal education in the United states (as defined by, say, math grades). Yet these fail to realize that the new comes from here and gets imitated elsewhere. And it is not thanks to universities, which obviously claim a lot more credit than their accomplishments warrant. Like Britain in the Industrial Revolution, America's asset is, simply, risk taking and the use of optionality, this remarkable ability to engage in rational forms fo trial and error, with no comparative shame in failing again, starting again, and repeating failure.

The irony of the process of thought control: the more energy you put into trying to control your ideas and what you think about, the more your ideas end up controlling you.

I'm a private intellectual, not a public one.

To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week's newspapers.

There are secrets to our world that only practice can reveal, and no opinion or analysis will ever capture in full.

Never take advice from someone wearing a tie.

Remember that you are a Black Swan.