History doesn't crawl; it leaps.

My nightmare scenario is that the government saves Citibank once again, as well as the other banks, and business resumes as usual. Then, the next time the system breaks, it breaks much, much bigger.

For many people, commuting is the worst part of the day, and policies that can make commuting shorter and more convenient would be a straightforward way to reduce minor but widespread suffering.

Comfort makes you weaker. We need some variability, some stressors. Not too much, but just enough.

Let me be more aggressive: we are largely better at doing than we are at thinking, thanks to antifragility. I’d rather be dumb and antifragile than extremely smart and fragile, any time.

We tend to use knowledge as therapy.

An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist or consultant the opposite.