"Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love."

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.”

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

“When conflicted between two choices, take neither.”

“Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.”

“When some systems are stuck in a dangerous impasse, randomness and only randomness can unlock them and set them free.”

Resonant Thoughts

"By the mere reading of this work one can of course achieve an intellectual knowledge, but not wisdom. Knowledge can be gained by transference, but wisdom must be acquired by experience and recognition…"

— Franz Bardon

alternative medicine1909–1958

#knowledge

"Semiotic provides a basis for understanding the main forms of human activity and their interrelationship, since all these activities and relations are reflected in the signs which mediate the activiti…"

— Charles W. Morris

Philosophy1901–1979

#knowledge

"Communication becomes the defining characteristic of homo sapiens; we are the species that speaks. We utter the words that create our world, and have learned to take our words and translate them into …"

— Mark Pesce

Education1962

#knowledge

"I would say that in order to reach the people you must feel as if you are part of the people. You must know what the people want, what they need, and what they feel. You must do a little self-analysis…"

— Che Guevara

Politics1928–1967

#knowledge