"But it remains the case that you know what is wrong with a lot more confidence than you know what is right."

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

"For, for aught we know, or for aught that the new science can say to the contrary, the gods which play the part of fate to the atoms of our brains may be our own minds. Through these atoms our minds m…"

— James Jeans

Science1877–1946

#knowledge

"My experience teaches me, Lady Dedlock, that most of the people I know would do far better to leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three fourths of their troubles."

— Charles Dickens

Literature1719–1793

#knowledge

"Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect."

— Herbert Spencer

Philosophy1820–1903

#knowledge

"When the Statue of Liberty was erected, government was the acknowledged enemy of the poor. Lady Liberty asked for the poor, the wretched refuse, the masses, not the wealthy or skilled. Why? Because ev…"

— Mary Ruwart

Literature1949

#knowledge