Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Wisdom

"When comparing salaries of government workers, consider that they have a much, much lower risk of unemployment and layoff than the rest of the population. This employment guarantee is a yuuuge hidden compensation." - @nntaleb

"If someone pays you for anything other than a specific transaction, you are a slave." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb #slavery

"All models are wrong, many are useful, some are deadly." - Nassim Taleb

"Courage is the only virtue you can't fake." - Nassim Taleb #virtue

"When people vote the way of the IYI elite, it is "democracy". Otherwise it is misguided, irrational, swayed by populism & lack of education." - Nassim Taleb #democracy

"Life is much, much easier when you treat all humans as flawed and imperfect, but flawed in quite different ways." - Nassim Taleb

"I avoid reading nonmath recent books. But if I do, best heuristic: avoid books on the NYT list of "Notable Books" " - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"Most so-called writers keep writing and writing with the hope, some day, to find something to say." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"The bottom half has been typically screwed by the middle class. That's the entire story of Rome." - 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 allow you to put there." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"Debt is a mistake between lender and borrower, and both should suffer." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"Universities have been progressing from providing scholarship for a small fee into selling degrees at a large cost." - @nntaleb

"Rituals are the music of life." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"A heuristic on whether you have control of your life: can you take naps?" - @nntaleb

"As a general rule, most "regrets" after one is caught's aren't regrets about having committed the action, but regrets about having been caught. Apologies count only when they are spontaneous, coming out of deep principles. Otherwise they are just an expression of submission."

"He who has never sinned is less reliable than he who has only sinned once. The antifragility of the higher level may require the fragility and sacrifice of the lower one." - @nntaleb

"Isocrates' Dynamic #SkinInTheGame Conduct yourself toward your parents as you would have your children conduct themselves toward you." - Nassim Taleb

"The next time someone pesters you with unneeded advice, gently remind him of the fate of the monk whom Ivan the Terrible put to death for delivering uninvited (and moralizing) advice. It works as a short-term cure." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"If something looks irrational —and has been so for a long time —odds are you have a wrong definition of rationality." - @nntaleb

"Most mistakes get worse when you try to correct them." - @nntaleb