Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

There are a whole host of psychological phenomenon humans have developed to protect ourselves from the sting of failure, from holding ourselves less accountable for our failures than we do other people, to letting our fear paralyze us and keep us from even trying.

An excuse is sometimes more ugly than guilt.

I. Hate. Excuses. Excuses are a disease.

The statesman must weigh the rewards of success against the penalties of failure. And he is permitted only one guess.

We must not say every mistake is a foolish one.

Having a scapegoat means not knowing that we have one.

An excuse is the handy explanation we offer when we disappoint other people.

Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.

Rationally speaking, blaming one's behavior on alcohol or drugs is like blaming the ladder by which you descended into a pit, or the staircase that took you down to a cellar, for what you found there.

One always pulls the trigger out of self-interest and quotes history to avoid responsibility or pangs of conscience.

I don't believe in luck. Everything is our doing or undoing. If something doesn't come out right, then as a director, you have to take full responsibility. You can't just say, 'No, I gave this job to the music supervisor. They promised me they would do it, and they didn't do it.' You can't blame anyone else.

Captains are always criticised.

I think the lies I make the most are in regards to my hopes and intentions for myself. As for lies I tell other people - I will certainly tell lies. When somebody is very ill and looks awful, and you tell them they look nice. Or if you just ate the last cookie, if someone asked me if I ate the last cookie, I would definitely lie about that.

Players often look for alibis - it's easy to give the blame to others.

Moving on' is a concept invented by Housewives. Housewives who behave so appallingly all they can do is say they are moving on, preferably in a place where everyone can hear them. To stay put and acknowledge that their actions have consequences and to accept responsibility is simply too painful for this particular brand of narcissist.

Many of us stay in situations that don't serve us because we don't want to confront the fact that we've failed.

I think a lot of the time, when things were going wrong, I would get blamed for things because I was the point guard.

In the Matrix in which Americans live, nothing is ever their fault.

The average human's fundamental project is to find someone else to blame for their problems.

Lack of confidence, sometimes alternating with unrealistic dreams of heroic success, often leads to procrastination, and many studies suggest that procrastinators are self-handicappers: rather than risk failure, they prefer to create conditions that make success impossible, a reflex that of course creates a vicious cycle.

[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.

A loser is someone who makes excuses and alibis and blames everyone else for their losses and failures.

I'm a very fortunate actor. I'm blessed to be the position I'm in right now. Hell, I'm blessed to be in any position, you know? There are so many guys who had good lives, great lives, and blew it...I think there are some guys who think they don't deserve to have good lives. They feel they don't deserve their good fortune, so they throw it away. One of my good friends was Chris Farley. Chris blew it. He blew the whole enchilada.

Research suggests that people are typically unaware of the reasons why they are doing what they are doing, but when asked for a reason, they readily supply one.

No one is willing to acknowledge a fault in himself when a more agreeable motive can be found for the estrangement of his acquaintances.