A Quote by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Most people are sceptical about the wrong things and gullible about the wrong things.
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I’m sure I am wrong about many things, although I’m not sure exactly which things I’m wrong about. I’m even sure I’m wrong about what I think I’m right about in at least some cases.
I start from the supposition that the world is topsyturvy, that things are all wrong, that the wrong people are in jail and the wrong people are out of jail, that the wrong people are in power and the wrong people are out of power, that the wealth is distributed in this country and the world in such a way as not simply to require small reform but to require a drastic reallocation of wealth. I start from the supposition that we don't have to say too much about this because all we have to do is think about the state of the world today and realize that things are all upside down.
I was born with the wrong sign
In the wrong house
With the wrong ascendancy
I took the wrong road
That led to
The wrong tendencies
I was in the wrong place
At the wrong time
For the wrong reason
And the wrong rhyme
On the wrong day
Of the wrong week
Used the wrong method
With the wrong technique
Wrong
Wrong.
Cosmopolitans begin, I think, with a sense of one thing we all certainly share, which is our fallibility. Nobody has reason to be confident that they're right about everything. That's one of the motivations for conversation across differences. It's in my interest to converse with people who are wrong about different things from the ones I'm wrong about!
There's nothing wrong with commercial art. There's nothing wrong with consumer society. There's nothing wrong with advertising. There's nothing wrong with shopping and spending money and being paid. There's nothing wrong with any of these things. These are things we do. I just think it's important to look at them from a different perspective - to see how bizarre and banal these rituals we partake in are. It's just important to think about them, I think, and to carry on. Life is about retrospection, and I think that goes for every facet of life.
Most people do not realize that as they continue to find things to complain about, they disallow their own physical well-being. Many do not realize that before they were complaining about an aching body or a chronic disease, they were complaining about many other things first. It does not matter if the object of your complaint is about someone you are angry with, behavior in others that you believe is wrong, or something wrong with your own physical body. Complaining is complaining, and it disallows improvement.
We believe in the wrong things. That's what frustrates me the most. Not the lack of belief, but the belief in the wrong things. You want meaning? Well, the meanings are out there. We're just so damn good at reading them wrong.
I'm one of those people who lies awake all night and worries about all the horrible things that can go wrong, whether a comma was wrong.
That's an aspect of this business which can be very frustrating and aggravating. Most of what is written about you is wrong and so much of what does get printed is often about personal things that you don't want to have other people read about.
In a funny way, when things went wrong in my life - and it is my fault that they went wrong, it is not anyone else's fault - and all the glittering outside things were taken away, I was left with the things of most value.
I think TARP was the most defining vote since I've been in Congress. It was wrong. You don't nationalize private - it was wrong. It desensitized people to what $700 billion was, which opened the door for a $900 million stimulus, for Obamacare, for all these things. It was wrong. It broke my heart.
People hate me for whatever reasons they come up with, or they hate me because their friends said they should. What can I do about it? What can I do about people who look at things the wrong way? At the end of the day it's like, 'You're wrong, I'm just a skateboarder. How can I help you?'
Most businesses fail because they want the right things but measure the wrong things, and they get the wrong results.
The truth is that nearly everybody is right about some things and wrong about most things; and if a man's testimony is not to be taken until he is right on every subject, witnesses will be extremely scarce.
People always ask me what I did when things went wrong on stage with AC/DC. Nothing ever went wrong. I might drop a drum stick, maybe, but that was about the only thing.
I've dated people where we traveled horribly together, and if one thing went wrong, it was horrible for them. Then I've been fortunate enough to have great traveling experiences where everything lined up and even when things went wrong, you just laughed about it. You learn so much about yourself when you're traveling with someone.
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