QuoteProject
In economic life and history more generally, just about everything of consequence comes from black swans; ordinary events have paltry effects in the long term.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Unpredictable and rare events have significant impacts, while everyday occurrences have little long-term effect.

This quote by Nassim Nicholas Taleb emphasizes the importance of rare and unpredictable events, termed 'black swans', in shaping economic outcomes and historical developments. Taleb argues that while common events may seem significant in the moment, it is the extraordinary occurrences that often lead to substantial consequences, altering the course of events in profound ways.

Themes

Black SwansUnpredictabilityEventsConsequencesEconomics

In practice

Example use cases

In a financial conference to highlight the impact of unexpected market crashes.

More from Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nobody reads the disclosures that roll down your computer screen. You click 'I agree' but you don't know what you're agreeing to.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Fragility is the quality of things that are vulnerable to volatility.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Those who were unlucky in life in spite of their skills would eventually rise. The lucky fool might have benefited from some luck in life; over the longer run he would slowly converge to the state of a less-lucky idiot. Each one would revert to his long-term properties.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Individuals should think about the worst-case scenarios and plan for them. The world will be crazier than you think it will be. Put money away, and then you can live with much more freedom.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead

Similar quotes

It is time for me to be dead for a little while - and then live again.
Kurt VonnegutRead
In the past, men created witches: now they create mental patients.
Thomas SzaszRead
Lunatics have no age. If we were crazy, you and I, we might be a great deal younger.
Yasunari KawabataRead
I believe in an individual soul which travels through eternity. This life is far from all there is--in fact, it is a minute part, simply an antechamber, a deciding place where we choose the light from the dark, where we come to know what we truly value.
Anne PerryRead
Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.
David Foster WallaceRead
The problems of a period are the existential crises of what can be but hasn't yet been resolved; and regardless of how seriously we take that word 'resolved,' if there were not some new possibility, there would be no crisis - there would be only despair.
Rollo MayRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.