A Quote by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Rank beliefs not according to their plausibility but by the harm they may cause.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Quote Topics

According Beliefs Cause Harm May Rank

Quote Author

Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Lebanese - Scientist
Born: 1960

The idea that we cause harm by doing what we perceive to be the right thing, that's another theme that interests me. Because most people don't intend to cause harm, they cause harm by doing the right thing - in their mind.

Andrew McCarthy

According to the yoga tradition, fear is the source of disease, decay - physical harm, when we're not thriving. And then finally, it's even the cause of death.

Rod Stryker

Our conscious motivations, ideas, and beliefs are a blend of false information, biases, irrational passions, rationalizations, prejudices, in which morsels of truth swim around and give the reassurance albeit false, that the whole mixture is real and true. The thinking processes attempt to organize this whole cesspool of illusions according to the laws of plausibility. This level of consciousness is supposed to reflect reality; it is the map we use for organizing our life.

Erich Fromm

unless the direction of science is guided by a consciously ethical motivation, especially compassion, its effects may fail to bring benefit. They may indeed cause great harm.

Dalai Lama

In the library of the world men have hitherto been ranged according to the form, and the binding; the time is coming when they will take rank and order according to their contents and intrinsic merits.

Nicolas Chamfort

Whatever harm the evil may do, the harm done by the good is the most harmful harm.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Capitalism does not require us to hold a particular set of cognitive beliefs; it only requires that we act as if certain beliefs (about money, commodities etc) are true. The rituals are the beliefs, beliefs which, at the level of subjective self-description, may well be disavowed.

Mark Fisher

It is not enough to ask, 'Will my act harm other people?' Even if the answer is No, my act may still be wrong, because of its effects on other people. I should ask, 'Will my act be one of a set of acts that will together harm other people?' The answer may be Yes. And the harm to others may be great. If this is so, I may be acting very wrongly, like the Harmless Torturers.

Derek Parfit

A democratic state will protect the freedom to hold any beliefs other than those that harm others, such as racism. In particular, it will see to it that no one is harmed just because of her beliefs.

Mario Bunge

I've neither beauty, money, nor rank, yet every foolish boy mistakes my frank interest for something warmer, and makes me miserable. It is my misfortune. Think of me what you will, but beware of me in time, for against my will I may do you harm.

Louisa May Alcott

There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.

Anthony de Mello

I believe, certainly in the NHL, a player who can help a team win because he can contribute on the ice is going to be coveted whatever his beliefs may be or whoever he may be. That goes to national origin, religious beliefs, or sexuality.

Gary Bettman

Basically these are beliefs about apocalypse that we have seen as truth in Western civilization for the last couple of hundred years. So we live according to these "truths" and as a result manifesting a life using those beliefs, which can be very self-destructive.

Bruce H. Lipton

Lack of understanding of the true nature of happiness, it seems to me, is the principal reason why people inflict sufferings on others. They think either that the other's pain may somehow be a cause of happiness for themselves or that their own happiness is more important, regardless of what pain it may cause. But this is shortsighted. No one truly benefits from causing harm to another sentient being. . . . . In the long run causing others misery and infringing their rights to peace and happiness result in anxiety, fear, and suspicion within oneself.

Dalai Lama

Generally speaking, books don't cause much harm. Except when you read them, that is. Then they cause all kinds of problems.