“Cumulative errors depend largely on the big surprises, the big opportunities. Not only do economic, financial, and political predictors miss them, but they are quite ashamed to say anything outlandish to their clients — and yet events, it turns out, are almost always outlandish.”

Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007), p. 149

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Cumulative errors depend largely on the big surprises, the big opportunities. Not only do economic, financial, and poli…" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb?

Nassim Nicholas Taleb196

Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former t… 1960

Related quotes

“[Market outcomes] depends on the cumulation of random events.”

W. Brian Arthur (1946) American economist

Source: Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns and Lock-in by Historical Events, (1989), p. 124; as cited in: Tobias Georg Meyer (2012) Path Dependence in Two-sided Markets. p. 244

“The fact is, there aren't just two sides to any issue, there's almost always a range of responses, and "it depends" is almost always the right answer in any big question.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Linus' blog: Black and white, 2008-11-02, Torvalds, Linus, 2008-11-02 http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2008/11/black-and-white.html, <br class="br">2000s, 2008

“They say it all started out with a big bang. But, what I wonder is, was it a big bang or did it just seem big because there wasn't anything else drown it out at the time?”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

3 Minute Wonder, Episode 2
On Life

“I think the kids always they look forward to be always the big stars. Not only football, any profession. They want to be the best, singer, they want to be the best political, only the stars. But I think sometime the life give you opportunity, and long to be a big star, but you don’t need to be a big star, you need to be beautiful, excellent man. Human being. This is the first.”

Pelé (1940–2022) Brazilian association football player

“How do we create only games that we actually feel like playing, because we can opt out at any time? In the economic field, at least, the answer is obvious. All of the gratuitous sadism of workplace politics depends on one’s inability to say “I quit” and feel no economic consequences.”

David Graeber book Bullshit Jobs

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018)

“Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

TV interview for Thames TV This Week (5 February 1976) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=102953 <br class="br">Leader of the Opposition

“It is a source of constant surprise to me that almost all professionals take pictures only on the orders of the clients and almost never to invent and experiment.”

Paolo Monti (1908–1982) Italian photographer

"Due parole sulla mia fotografia", 1981; quoted in "Monti, Paolo" https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/paolo-monti_(Dizionario-Biografico)/, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. <br class="br">Original: (it) Per me è motivo di continua sorpresa il fatto che quasi tutti i professionisti fotografano solo su ordine dei committenti e quasi mai per inventare e sperimentare.

“We're more comfortable in that kind of business. It means we miss a lot of very big winners. But we wouldn't know how to pick them out anyway. It also means we have very few big losers - and that's quite helpful over time. We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

1999 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, as quoted in "Why Won't Buffett Invest in Tech Stocks?" at Motley Fool (6 March 2000) http://www.fool.com/boringport/2000/boringport000306.htm

“A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Quoted, This Side of Paradise (1920)

“A lot of people seem to believe in a big-daddy-God or a big-cop-God or a big-king-God. They believe in a kind of superperson. A few believe God is another word for nature. And nature turns out to mean just about anything they happen not to understand or feel in control of.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 2 (p. 15)

“Cumulative errors depend largely on the big surprises, the big opportunities. Not only do economic, financial, and political predictors miss them, but they are quite ashamed to say anything outlandish to their clients — and yet events, it turns out, are almost always outlandish.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Nassim Nicholas Taleb196

Related quotes

Related topics