Outliers are those who have been given opportunities — and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them. - Malcolm Gladwell

Taleb likes to invoke
Popper: 'No amount of observations
of white swans can allow the inference
that all swans are white, but the observation
of a single black swan is sufficient
to refute that conclusion.

It was an admission of defeat. ... He knew he needed to do a better job of navigating the world, but he didn't know how. He couldn't even talk to his calculus teacher, for goodness' sake. These were things that others, with lesser minds, could master easily. But that's because those others had had help along the way, and Chris Langan never had. It wasn't an excuse. It was a fact. He'd had to make his way alone, and no one — not even rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses — ever makes it alone.

The people who were right about Hitler were those who knew the least about him personally. The people who were wrong about Hitler were the ones who had talked with him for hours.