# Quote — Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness

> [A]ge is beauty. ...[M]y instinct is to value distilled thought over newer thinking, regardless of its apparent sophistication—another reason to accumulate the hoary volumes by my bedside... For an idea to have survived so many cycles is indicative of its relative fitness. Noise, at least some noise, was filtered out. ...[P]rogress means that some new information is better than past information, not that the average of new information will supplant past information...

- Author: [Nassim Nicholas Taleb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb.md)
- Book: [Fooled by Randomness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/fooled-by-randomness.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Fooled_by_Randomness_(2001)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/fooled-by-randomness/a-ge-is-beauty

## More from this book

> The information that a person derived some profit in the past... by itself, is neither meaningful nor relevant. We need to know the size of the population from which he came. If the initial population is 10,000 managers, I would ignore the results.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/fooled-by-randomness/the-information-that.md)

> [B]ecoming more rational, or not feeling the emotions of social slights, is not part of the human race... not with our current biology. There is no solace to be found from reasoning...

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/fooled-by-randomness/b-ecoming-more-rational.md)

> A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/fooled-by-randomness/a-mistake-is-not.md)