"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

"Whatever exists, he said. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent."

— Cormac McCarthy

Literature1933–2023

#knowledge

"Our country's a mess. And that's why when she makes the speech, she doesn't talk about radical Islam. She doesn't talk about the problems that we have in this country and throughout the world. Many of…"

— Donald Trump

Politics1945

#knowledge

"Compulsion is not indeed the final appeal to man, but joy is. And joy is everywhere; it is in the earth's green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky; in the reckless exuberance of spring…"

— Rabindranath Tagore

Music1861–1941

#knowledge

"I am an investigator by inclination. I feel a great thirst for knowledge and an impatient eagerness to advance, also satisfaction at each progressive step. There was a time when I thought that all thi…"

— Immanuel Kant

Philosophy1724–1804

#knowledge