Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

The goose that lays the golden egg has been considered a most valuable possession. But even more profitable is the privilege of taking the golden eggs laid by somebody else's goose. The investment bankers and their associates now enjoy that privilege. They control the people through the people's own money.

There’s a lot of money in making financial products whose risk few understand. Simplicity might be good for economics, but it’s lousy for Wall Street bonuses.

I think everything is a motive for money. Every thought, every belief, everything we're taught in school.

I think financial markets only look after their own interests.

In 'Wall Street,' Charlie Sheen carried that movie.

If I had to study and work hard, it would have to have the reward of a lot of cash.

In the bubble decade, making money as an end in itself boomed as a calling among students at elite universities like Harvard, siphoning off gifted undergraduates who might otherwise have been scientists, teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, artists or inventors.

I never saw a lawyer yet who would admit he was making money.

It was a precondition to leaving Facebook that I wasn't going to start something that was just about chasing money.

They're always saying I'm a capitalistic pig. I suppose I am. But... it's good for my drumming.

I really came out to L.A. to take the money and run.

You'd be a fool or a deluded idealist to think ethics would be prominent on Wall Street. That is not a statement against people in the money business, just a fact.

I do them all for the money, I really do.

In a capitalist society, persons who create capital, like Michael Eisner, are given the staggering rewards.

I mean, anything that money can be made off will never be a problem to make, no matter what it is.

One thing I've learned, and I don't really blame anybody for this: most people who have a lot of money are the people that want to make money more than anyone. I've seen it with athletes, I've seen it with musicians, you know?

People talk about Wall Street greed, but one of the things many people don't understand is that there are a lot of organizations that have been the recipient of largess from the same Wall Street.

I really wish there was some big brother conspiracy theory. I just think it's the ignorance of trying to make a dollar. That's what the networks have done and will continue to do. If anyone doesn't think that this is about making money, then they're crazy.

People are pretty simple: they do what they are rewarded for doing. If they get multimillion-dollar bonuses by taking huge risks with other people's money - as they still do - then they will continue to take those huge risks, and not give it another thought.

Most of the world leadership today is motivated by profit.

Anything you get involved with, you are supposed to make money.

Not everybody's actions are based on ideas. Some people's actions are based on profit.

The attraction of power we take for granted in politics.. But in economics...the thrust...is for pecuniary return, for money. And I have always felt that denies in the economic world a very large part of the motivation.

I just want to get the most money I can.

If you're the kind of kid who thinks that all that's important in life is making money, Wall Street is probably still the place to go, especially now that Trump's elected.