"An idea starts to be interesting when you get scared of taking it to its logical conclusion."

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

"The reason that Syria is facing this crisis is not because of any bad thing which Syria has done or any weaknesses within its democracy, or within its economy, or within its human rights record - and …"

— George Galloway

Politics1954

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"It's mostly everyone from the show, so this feels just like being in the studio - except that we can drink here."

— Goran Višnjić

Entertainment1972

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"I awoke from The Sickness at the age of forty-five, calm and sane, and in reasonably good health except for a weakened liver and the look of borrowed flesh common to all who survive The Sickness... Wh…"

— William S. Burroughs

Literature1914–1997

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"In 1990, I broke the story that, instead of being worth billions, as he'd claimed, Trump actually had a negative net worth and escaped a chaotic collapse into personal bankruptcy only when the governm…"

— David Cay Johnston

Economics1948

#philosophy