The traits I respect are erudition and the courage to stand up when half-men are afraid for their reputation. Any idiot can be intelligent.
Nassim Nicholas TalebMuch of the research into humans' risk-avoidance machinery shows that it is antiquated and unfit for the modern world; it is made to counter repeatable attacks and learn from specifics. If someone narrowly escapes being eaten by a tiger in a certain cave, then he learns to avoid that cave.
Nassim Nicholas TalebThe best philosophers were not academics, but had another job, so their philosophy was not corrupted by careerism.
Nassim Nicholas TalebYou get pseudo-order when you seek order; you only get a measure of order and control when you embrace randomness.
Nassim Nicholas TalebIt is much harder to become independent if you are wealthy than to become wealthy if you are independent.
Nassim Nicholas TalebFinancial institutions have been merging into a smaller number of very large banks. Almost all banks are interrelated. So the financial ecology is swelling into gigantic, incestuous, bureaucratic banks-when one fails, they all fall. We have moved from a diversified ecology of small banks, with varied lending policies, to a more homogeneous framework of firms that all resemble one another. True, we now have fewer failures, but when they occur... I shiver at the thought.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb