Shared by JohnH

Wikiquotes has a large page of NNT quotes.

• My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves and the quality of their knowledge too seriously and those who don’t have the guts to sometimes say: I don’t know….
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Home Page

• You may not be able to change the world but can at least get some entertainment & make a living out of the epistemic arrogance of the human race.
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Home Page

• It is now the scientific consensus that our risk-avoidance mechanism is not mediated by the cognitive modules of our brain, but rather by the emotional ones. This may have made us fit for the Pleistocene era. Our risk machinery is designed to run away from tigers; it is not designed for the information-laden modern world.
  • Quoted in the introduction to “A Talk with Nassim Nicholas Taleb,” Edge (April 2004) [1]

• Much of the research into humans’ risk-avoidance machinery shows that it is antiquated and unfit for the modern world; it is made to counter repeatable attacks and learn from specifics. If someone narrowly escapes being eaten by a tiger in a certain cave, then he learns to avoid that cave.
  • “Learning to Expect the Unexpected,” The New York Times (2004–04-08}

• We should reward people, not ridicule them, for thinking the impossible.
  • “Learning to Expect the Unexpected,” The New York Times (2004–04-08}