"When we want to do something while unconsciously certain to fail, we seek advice so we can blame someone else for the failure."

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

"Periyar was accepted and acclaimed as the leader by a significant section of the Tamil population in spite of all his contempt for Tamil and disdain for Tamils only because he was perceived to be a ge…"

— Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Politics1879–1973

#leadership

"I remember President Kennedy once stated... that the United States had the nuclear missile capacity to wipe out the Soviet Union two times over, while the Soviet Union had enough atomic weapons to wip…"

— Nikita Khrushchev

Politics1959–2007

#knowledge

"The Multitude will hardly believe the excessive Force of Education, and in the difference of Modesty between Men and Women ascribe that to Nature, which is altogether owing to early Instruction: Miss …"

— Bernard Mandeville

Philosophy1670–1733

#time

"A museum that really wants to promote modern art might give the artist a guaranty, on certain conditions, so that he can get on with his life and his creations. Or do you believe that the museum is mo…"

— Kurt Schwitters

Art1887–1948

#art