Home > Work > Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets QUOTES

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets QUOTES

1 " Reality is far more vicious than Russian roulette. First, it delivers the fatal bullet rather infrequently, like a revolver that would have hundreds, even thousands of chambers instead of six. After a few dozen tries, one forgets about the existence of a bullet, under a numbing false sense of security. Second, unlike a well-defined precise game like Russian roulette, where the risks are visible to anyone capable of multiplying and dividing by six, one does not observe the barrel of reality. One is capable of unwittingly playing Russian roulette - and calling it by some alternative “low risk” game. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

2 " There is a saying that bad traders divorce their spouse sooner than abandon their positions. Loyalty to ideas is not a good thing for traders, scientists - or anyone. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

3 " If the past, by bringing surprises, did not resemble the past previous to it (what I call the past's past), then why should our future resemble our current past? "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

4 " Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

5 " Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; it is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

6 " Those who were unlucky in life in spite of their skills would eventually rise. The lucky fool might have benefited from some luck in life; over the longer run he would slowly converge to the state of a less-lucky idiot. Each one would revert to his long-term properties. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

7 " Never ask a man if he is from Sparta: If he were, he would have let you know such an important fact - and if he were not, you could hurt his feelings. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

8 " No matter how sophisticated our choices, how good we are at dominating the odds, randomness will have the last word. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

9 " A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in light of the information available until that point "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

10 " We favor the visible, the embedded, the personal, the narrated, and the tangible; we scorn the abstract. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

11 " When things go our way we reject the lack of certainty. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

12 " Bullish or bearish are terms used by people who do not engage in practicing uncertainty, like the television commentators, or those who have no experience in handling risk. Alas, investors and businesses are not paid in probabilities; they are paid in dollars. Accordingly, it is not how likely an event is to happen that matters, it is how much is made when it happens that should be the consideration. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

13 " My lesson from Soros is to start every meeting at my boutique by convincing everyone that we are a bunch of idiots who know nothing and are mistake-prone, but happen to be endowed with the rare privilege of knowing it. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

14 " Mathematics is principally a tool to meditate, rather than to compute. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

15 " Mild success can be explainable by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to variance. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

16 " The epiphany I had in my career in randomness came when I understood that I was not intelligent enough, nor strong enough, to even try to fight my emotions. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

17 " The observation of the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments, or to admire a man's happiness that may yet, in course of time, suffer change. For the uncertain future has yet to come, with all variety of future; and to him only to whom the divinity has [guaranteed] continued happiness until the end we may call happy. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

18 " Clearly, an open mind is a necessity when dealing with randomness. Popper believed that any idea of Utopia is necessarily closed owing to the fact that it chokes its own refutations. The simple notion of a good model for society that cannot be left open for falsification is totalitarian. I learned from Popper, in addition to the difference between an open and a closed society, that between an open and a closed mind. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

19 " It certainly takes bravery to remain skeptical; it takes inordinate courage to introspect, to confront oneself, to accept one's limitations--Scientists are seeing more and more evidence that we are specifically designed by mother nature to fool ourselves. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

20 " Too much success is the enemy, too much failure is demoralizing. "

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets