Never show a risk number, even if it is right. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

If your approach to mathematics is mechanical not mystical, you're not going to go anywhere.

We do not need to be rational and scientific when it comes to the details of our daily life — only in those that can harm us and threaten our survival. Modern life seems to invite us to do the exact opposite; become extremely realistic and intellectual when it comes to such matters as religion and personal behavior, yet as irrational as possible when it comes to matters ruled by randomness (say, portfolio or real estate investments). I have encountered colleagues, “rational,” no-nonsense people, who do not understand why I cherish the poetry of Baudelaire and Saint-John Perse or obscure (and often impenetrable) writers like Elias Canetti, J. L. Borges, or Walter Benjamin. Yet they get sucked into listening to the “analyses” of a television “guru,” or into buying the stock of a company they know absolutely nothing about, based on tips by neighbors who drive expensive cars.

The wisdom of Salomon: he had to rule between two women both claiming to be the mother of an infant. By offering to split the child in half, he figured out who was the mother: she was the one who cared the most. She had more