Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.

If you keep saying two plus two equals five over and over again, then that is what people are going to think. Maybe it does equal five if we keep changing the definition of what's normal and what's right and what's wrong.

No one can penetrate me. They only see what's in their own fancy, always.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.

All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing.

Perception is created and twisted so quickly.

Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets.

You can read everybody. It's not even interesting to tell the truth because to some extent it's false.

They say the camera never lies. It lies every day.

The world we live in is vastly different from the world we think we live in.

Art has a double face, of expression and illusion, just like science has a double face: the reality of error and the phantom of truth.

How little do they see what is, who frame their hasty judgments upon that which seems.

Everything about the left is perception, manipulation, and lies. Everything. Everything is 'Wag the Dog.' Everything is a structured deception.

Two kinds of blindness are easily combined so that those who do not see really appear to see what is not.

How little do they see what really is, who frame their hasty judgment upon that which seems.

A misconception remains a misconception, even when it is shared by the majority of people.

Belief and seeing: They are both often wrong.

I wish that the Indians believed me a god, for upon the report of an enemy's valor oftentimes depends the success of a battle, and false reports have many times done as great things as true courage and resolution.

Life is all in the setup. A lot of people think I got the world handed to me, and I let them think exactly that whilst they handed me the world.

To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle.

Sometimes what we see, what's going on in front of us, isn't really what's happening.

That is all that happened. Why did you hear something else?

Appearances are not reality; but they often can be a convincing alternative to it. You can control appearances most of the time, but facts are what they are. When the facts are too sharp, you can craft a cheerful version of the situation and cover the facts the way that you can covered a battered old four-slice toaster with a knitted cozy featuring images of kittens.

Generally, a lot of the things people think are made up are real, a lot of the things people think are real are made up, a lot of the things people think are spontaneous are cleverly faked, and a lot of the things people think are fake are spontaneous.