The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Random House, 2007)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb · c. 2007

Nassim Nicholas Taleb did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this book, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The book prints chapter headings its extracted text does not preserve, so the claims below are in the book's order but not grouped. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
What you don't know matters far more than what you do know

Their wordsBlack Swan logic makes what you don’t know far more relevant than what you do know.
Our reading
Missing a train only hurts if you run after it

Their wordsMissing a train is only painful if you run after it!
Our reading
Experts do not know what they do not know

Their wordsThe problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know.
Our reading
We respect what happened and ignore what could have happened

Their wordsWe respect what has happened, ignoring what could have happened.
Our reading
We are demonstrably arrogant about what we think we know

Their wordsFirst, we are demonstrably arrogant about what we think we know.
Our reading
Platonicity makes us think we understand more than we do

Their wordsPlatonicity is what makes us think that we understand more than we actually do
Our reading
Nobody is safe in Extremistan

Their wordsI have said that nobody is safe in Extremistan.
Our reading
We tend to think we know a little more than we actually do

Their wordsWe certainly know a lot, but we have a built-in tendency to think that we know a little bit more than we actually do

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Found from what the books talk about: claims worded alike in the archive's hourly pass, and subjects both are filed under. It is not a judgement that they agree — related books often argue the opposite. All books

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