"My models showed that ultimately almost nobody really survived; bears dropped like flies in the rally and bulls ended up being slaughtered... But there was one exception... option buyers... could buy the insurance against blowup..."

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

"In many ways connection has been disastrous. We have confused information with ideas (of which there are too few. I found out much more about the world and myself by being unconnected."

— Paul Theroux

Literature1941

#philosophy

"Right is not right; so is not so. If right were really right it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were really so, it would differ so clearly from n…"

— Zhuangzi

Philosophy-369–-286

#friendship

"I receive letters every day asking me to write a manifesto and make a speech; that I am the only man who could do so with effect; and all that. Why should I? I warned the country about Ireland before …"

— Benjamin Disraeli

Politics1804–1881

#writing

"I think there was a layer of several inches of crystal clear ice, probably in the form of metallic hydrogen, about 10-20 miles up. It could have been held up by the earth’s magnetic field or the inter…"

— Kent Hovind

Education1953

#nature