Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave nether room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.

I can't predict the future.

A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.

The nice thing about baseball is that all of the possible outcomes are known - it's not quite as messy as the real world. That makes the game an excellent playground for probability.

The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.

Those who have knowledge, don't predict. Those who predict, don't have knowledge.

Sometimes the probabilities are very close to certainties, but they're never really certainties.

A thousand probabilities don't make one fact.

There is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is that there is very little about which one can be certain.

Uncertainty is everywhere and you cannot escape from it.

Uncertainty means that we do not have a complete description of the world which we fully believe to be true.

All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability.

Many things are possible. Few things are certain.

Probability fractions arise from our knowledge and from our ignorance.

I'm not a betting man, and even if I was, I certainly wouldn't bet on this! I would not bet on the Best Actor.

One shouldn't know the future.

The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

You mustn't take what I say as gospel because no one can second-guess the future.

There is nothing so uncertain as a sure thing.

If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!

We are all seekers in some way. There are those of us who think they have all the answers and there are those of us who may never get an answer.

Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty.

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - that is all that agnosticism means.

I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of.

I've ceased making predictions on things because we'll see how they turn out.