The author cites researcher David Howard's idea of post-traumatic growth. Howard contends that some individuals faced with a traumatic event actually develop new strength.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The best way to measure the loss of intellectual sophistication - this "certification," to put it bluntly - is in the growing disappearance of sarcasm, as mechanic minds take insults a bit too literally.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The curious mind embraces science; the gifted and sensitive, the arts; the practical, business; the leftover becomes an economist

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Internet allows the small guy a global marketplace. But technology is harmful in the sense that we get too much information from it. Because of the web we get 10 times the amount of noise we ever got, which makes harmful fallacies far more likely.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The next time someone pesters you with unneeded advice, gently remind him of the fate of the monk whom Ivan the Terrible put to death for delivering uninvited (and moralizing) advice. It works as a short-term cure.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The next time you experience a blackout, take some solace by looking at the sky. You will not recognize it.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The people I go after are the false experts, those who do not accept the limits of their knowledge.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The problem is that our ideas are sticky: once we produce a theory, we are not likely to change our minds....

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb