"It’s harder to say no when you really mean it."

Nassim Nicholas Taleb Mathematics See all quotes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb →

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

“Professor Karl Pearson... devised the first test of nonrandomness... He examined millions of runs of what was called a Monte Carlo ... He discovered... the runs were not purely random. ...Philosophers of statistics call this the reference case problem to explain that there is no true attainable randomness in practice, only in theory.”

“Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love.”

“Greatness starts with the replacement of hatred with polite disdain.”

“When conflicted between two choices, take neither.”

“Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.”

Resonant Thoughts

"The smaller the world, the better I feel. When the reed is around me, evil has disappeared from the world. I really shall paint the reed next year, I've seriously decided. A small area of reeds with s…"

— Jopie Huisman

Art1922–2000

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"Retirement security also depends upon keeping the commitments of Social Security, and we will. We must make Social Security financially stable and allow personal retirement accounts for younger worker…"

— George W. Bush

Politics1824–1900

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"I'm fortunate to know many of the trustees. Well, for example I'm good friends with the Chairman, Mike Boone. And there's one trustee I know really well, a proud graduate of the SMU Class of 1968 who …"

— George W. Bush

Politics1824–1900

#family

"Old age diminishes our strength; it takes away our pleasures one after the other; it withers the soul as well as the body; it renders adventure and friendship difficult; and finally it is shadowed by …"

— André Maurois

opinion journalism1885–1967

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