WIST Quotations

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas -- The Black Swan, Part 2, ch. 10 “The Scandal of Prediction” (2007)

Dave — Mon, 26 May 2025 18:42:02 +0000

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.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (b. 1960) Lebanese-American essayist, statistician, risk analyst, aphorist
The Black Swan, Part 2, ch. 10 “The Scandal of Prediction” (2007)
(Source)

Brown, Rita Mae -- Venus Envy, ch. 21 (1993)

Dave — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 23:22:16 +0000

Normal is the average of deviance.

Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Venus Envy, ch. 21 (1993)
(Source)

Gibbon, Edward -- Memoirs of My Life and Writings (1796)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) English historian
Memoirs of My Life and Writings (1796)
(Source)