# Antifragile - Author: [Nassim Nicholas Taleb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb.md) - Quotes: 36 - Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile ## Quotes > Much of aging comes from a misunderstanding of the effect of comfort. p. 55 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/much-of-aging.md) > When some systems are stuck in a dangerous impasse, randomness and only randomness can unlock them and set them free. p. 102 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/when-some-systems.md) > There is no such thing as a failed soldier, dead or alive (unless he acted in a cowardly manner)—likewise there is no such thing as a failed entrepreneur or failed scientific researcher ... p. 79 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/there-is-no-such.md) > It is all about redundancy. Nature likes to overinsure itself. p. 44 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/it-is-all.md) > I want to live happily in a world I don't understand. p. 4 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/i-want-to-live.md) > Few understand that procrastination is our natural defense, letting things take care of themselves and exercise their antifragility. p. 122 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/few-understand-that.md) > An option hides where we don't want it to hide. p. 184 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/an-option-hides.md) > The fragile wants tranquility, the antifragile grows from disorder, and the robust doesn't care too much. p. 20 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/the-fragile-wants.md) > It is painful to think about ruthlessness as an engine of improvement. p. 75 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/it-is-painful.md) > This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is a risk, that it is a bad thing ... p. 84 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/this-is-the.md) > Compromising is condoning. The only modern dictum I follow one by George Santayana: A man is morally free when... he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity. This is not just an aim but an obligation. p. 16 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/compromising-is-condoning.md) > If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud. p. 15 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/if-you-see.md) > Randomness works well in search—sometimes better than humans. p. 103 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/randomness-works-well.md) > A man is honorable in proportion to the personal risks he takes for his opinion. p. 147 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/a-man-is-honorable.md) > He who has never sinned is less reliable than he who has only sinned once. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/he-who-has.md) > If I could predict what my day would exactly look like, I would feel a little bit dead. p. 63 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/if-i-could.md) > Modernity has replaced ethics with legalese. p. 15 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/modernity-has-replaced.md) > I suppose that the main benefit of being rich (over just being independent) is to be able to despise rich people (a good concentration of whom you find in glitzy ski resorts) without any sour grapes. It is even sweeter when these farts don't know that you are richer than they are. p. 176 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/i-suppose-that.md) > Our greatest asset is the one we distrust the most: the built-in antifragility of certain risk-taking systems. p. 171 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/our-greatest-asset.md) > It is often the mistakes of others that benefit the rest of us—and, sadly, not them ... For the antifragile, harm from errors should be less than the benefits. p. 72 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/it-is-often.md) > The best way to learn a language may be an episode of jail in a foreign country. p. 62 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/the-best-way.md) > We didn't get where we are thanks to the sissy notion of resilience. p. 10 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/we-didnt-get.md) > What is nonmeasurable and nonpredictable will remain nonmeasurable and nonpredictable ... no matter how much hate mail I get. p. 138 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/what-is-nonmeasurable.md) > [A] theory is a very dangerous thing to have. p. 116 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/a-theory-is-a-very.md) > Simplicity is not so simple to attain. p. 11 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/simplicity-is-not.md) > Just as being nice to the arrogant is no better than being arrogant toward the nice; being accommodating toward anyone committing a nefarious action condones it. p. 15 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/just-as-being.md) > Daily news and sugar confuse our system in the same manner. p. 127 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/daily-news-and.md) > My idea of the modern Stoic sage is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking. p. 156 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/my-idea-of-the.md) > Half of life—the interesting half of life—we don't even have a name for. p. 33 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/half-of-life-the.md) > The worst side effect of wealth is the social associations it forces on its victims, as people with big houses end up socializing with other people with big houses. p. 174 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/the-worst-side.md) > Information is antifragile; it feeds more on attempts to harm it than it does on efforts to promote it. p. 49 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/information-is-antifragile.md) > The antifragility of the higher level may require the fragility—and sacrifice—of the lower one. p. 74 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/the-antifragility-of-the.md) > Much of modern life is preventable chronic stress injury. p. 64 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/much-of-modern.md) > If humans fight the last war, nature fights the next one. p. 46 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/if-humans-fight.md) > Modernity widened the distance between the sensational and the relevant. p. 109 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/modernity-widened-the.md) > Injecting some confusion stabilizes the system. p. 101 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/injecting-some-confusion.md)