Nassim Taleb on Learning Quotes

"The practitioner knows things the theorist cannot see."

"To understand the world, you must spend a lot of time doing nothing but observing."

"If you are not afraid of being wrong, you are not really thinking."

"Mastery is being comfortable with what you do not know."

"The best way to learn is to read everything you can on a subject until you are bored with it."

"My definition of a loser is someone who, after making a mistake, doesn't introspect, doesn't exploit it, feels embarrassed and defensive rather than enriched with a new piece of information."

"A flâneur is someone who is allowed to be curious for its own sake."

"You can only be a polymath if you have the courage to be bored and the stamina to read old books."

"Skepticism is the highest form of confidence in one's own reasoning."

"The modern world replaces the 'know-how' of the practitioner with the 'know-what' of the academic, which is a disaster for business."

"The best way to learn is to do."

"The tragedy of the modern world is that we have replaced wisdom with information and work with activity."

"A person who has skin in the game is more likely to be right than a person who is merely an 'expert'."

"Difficulty is what wakes up the genius."

"You will never fully convince someone that he is wrong; only reality can."

"The best way to learn how a business works is to start one. Theoretical knowledge is a poor substitute for the scars of experience."

"The more you plan for the future, the more you are anchored to a past that won't repeat."

"The strategy for the discoverer is to rely less on planning and more on tinkering."

"The best way to filter information is to wait. If it's still relevant in a year, it was worth reading."

"You cannot use the same logic to predict the future that you used to explain the past."

"To be a philosopher is to know through via negativa."

"The best way to learn is by doing, not by reading about doing. Experience is the only teacher that counts."

"The arrogance of the IYI (Intellectual Yet Idiot) is the greatest threat to society."

"The Lindy effect suggests that the longer a book has been in print, the longer it will remain. Read old books."

"True learning happens when you have something at stake."

"The irony of the digital age is that there is more information, but less meaning."

"You will never know for sure if someone is an asshole until he becomes rich."

"We are much better at doing than at learning."

"Never listen to a left-brain person for advice on anything that involves uncertainty."

"Knowledge grows by subtraction, not addition."

"Knowledge is reached by any other means than a library."

"Knowledge is reached by any other means than a classroom."

"Knowledge is reached by any other means than a textbook."