They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status - but rarely for your wisdom.

My biggest problem with modernity may lie in the growing separation of the ethical and the legal

The central idea in The Black Swan is that: rare events cannot be estimated from empirical observation since they are rare.

I suspect the I.Q., SAT, and school grades are tests designed by nerds so they can get high scores in order to call each other intelligent...Smart and wise people who score low on IQ tests, or patently intellectually defective ones, like the former U.S. president George W. Bush, who score high on them (130), are testing the test and not the reverse.

A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.

Maximum of an average is necessarily less volatile than the average maximum

The person you are most afraid to contradict is yourself.