Nate Silver Quotes

The biggest threat to a better life is the desire to keep the future under control - to make the world predictable by reining in creativity and enterprise. Progress as a neat blueprint, with no deviations and no surprise, may work in children's cartoons or utopian novels. But it's just a fantasy.

Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away.

You can never plan the future by the past.

I believe it's less risky long-term to embrace change.

I can't predict the future.

If we have as a clear certainty with which to plan, total uncertainty, then that would be helpful.

What is certain about the future is that even the best efforts to predict the conditions of future war will prove erroneous. What is important, however, is to not be so far off the mark that visions of the future run counter to the very nature of war and render American forces unable to adapt to unforeseen challenges.

Strategy is, at some level, the ability to predict what's going to happen, but it's also about understanding the context in which it is being formulated. And then you have to be open-minded to the fact that you're not going to get it right at the very beginning.

The best policymakers know that in start-ups, as in politics, not everything works out exactly as planned.

You say this victory is dangerous. I say that today no one can yet tell if it's dangerous, that today I don't see the risks you mention. If, however, those risks should become reality...I'll act in accordance with the new reality.

Change almost never fails because it's too early. It almost always fails because it's too late.

Forecasting is very difficult, especially when it involves the future.

Deciding under uncertainty is bad enough, but deciding under an illusion of certainty is catastrophic.

If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives.

One cannot plan for the unexpected.

If there's one thing that's certain in business, it's uncertainty.

People don't realize that we cannot forecast the future. What we can do is have probabilities of what causes what, but that's as far as we go. And I've had a very successful career as a forecaster, starting in 1948 forward. The number of mistakes I have made are just awesome. There is no number large enough to account for that.

An adaptable company is one that captures more than its fair share of new opportunities. It's always redefining its 'core business' in ways that open up new avenues for growth.

But I don't bet the farm on any of those possibilities, either. I'm also preparing, intelligently, to walk away from this, and walk away from it happy to have had the experience.

It doesn't always happen according to the way you have planned things out but I feel if you have covered most of the aspects, it does help out there in the middle.

In any business, you have to evolve.

If you have to forecast, forecast often.

You can't get married to any one particular plan. That is the biggest lesson I learned at PayPal.

Well, it's very dangerous to project, but it's clear that the existing technology has some more years to go.

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