The central idea in The Black Swan is that: rare events cannot be estimated from empirical observation since they are rare. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted,but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate. — Henry David Thoreau
It is a part of probability that many improbable things will happen. — Aristotle
Black Swan theory tells us that things happen that were previously thought to be impossible – or never thought of at all. — Chris Voss
There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice. — Ulysses S. Grant
Many things are improbable, only a few are impossible. — Elon Musk
We search through historical data looking for anomalous patterns that we would not expect to occur at random. — Jim Simons
Often, the most extraordinary opportunities are hidden among the seemingly insignificant events of life. If we do not pay attention to these events, we can easily miss the opportunities. — Jim Rohn
Social science virtually abhors the event. Not without reason; the short-term is the most capricious and deceptive form of time. — Fernand Braudel
Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare. — Rene Descartes
A life is made up of a great number of small incidents, and a small number of great ones. — Roald Dahl
In war, important events result from trivial causes. — Julius Caesar
Rare Occasion Quotes
History has shown us that, on extraordinarily rare occasions, it becomes necessary for the federal government to intervene on behalf of individuals whose 14th Amendment rights to legal due process and equal protection may be violated by a state. — Michael K. Simpson
I am not greedy. I do not seek to possess the major portion of your days. I am content if, on those rare occasions whose truth can be stated only by poetry, you will, perhaps, recall an image, even only the aura of my films. — Maya Deren
I, a woman, find wearing high heels agreeable only on the very rare occasion that (1) I will be ferried between destinations upon a palanquin or (2) I am going to a cocktail party and, at five feet two, don't want to spend the evening discussing the latest movies with somebody's nipples. — Lauren Collins
It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.
If you're willing to answer yes to a God outside of nature, then there's nothing inconsistent with God on rare occasions choosing to invade the natural world in a way that appears miraculous. — Richard Dawkins
As resolute as I feel about my convictions, if I'm wrong, I'm man enough to say I'm wrong, because I find it a rare occasion anyway. — Stephen A. Smith
On rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a married couple falling in love after marriage, but on close examination it will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the inevitable. — Emma Goldman
Great minds discuss ideas.Average minds discuss events.Small minds discuss people.
Optimal experience is that rare occasion when we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
As to moral courage, I have very rarely met with the two o'clock in the morning kind. I mean unprepared courage, that which is necessary on an unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgement and decision. — Napoleon Bonaparte
On one of those rare occasions when Bach appraised his own life's work, he remarked: I worked hard. — Johann Sebastian Bach
Occasions are rare; and those, who know how to seize upon them, are rarer. — Josh Billings
Rare Things Quotes
One thing you should know about me is I never play to lose, Always aim high and rarely obey the rules. — J. Cole
It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things. — Leonardo da Vinci
The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Givers have to set limits because takers rarely do.
Hard words are very rarely useful. Real firmness is good for every thing. Strut is good for nothing. — Alexander Hamilton
Friendship without self-interest is one of the rare and beautiful things of life. — James F. Byrnes
Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. — Taylor Swift
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
I look for the good in people. Sometimes I get hurt for it, but it's rare and it's worth it. You may hear me say optimistic things that sound naive. I'm not naive. I've read too much history to be naive. I just think love wins out over the darker parts of human nature in the end. — Lex Fridman
That many-faceted thing called love succeeds in building bridges from the loneliness on this shore to the loneliness on the other one. These bridges can be of great beauty, but they are rarely built for eternity, and frequently they cannot tolerate too heavy a burden without collapsing. — Karen Horney
That's the funny thing about life. We're rarely aware of the bullets we dodge. The just-misses. The almost-never-happeneds. We spend so much time worrying about how the future is going to play out and not nearly enough time admiring the precious perfection of the present. — Lauren Miller
That's the thing about running: your greatest runs are rarely measured by racing success. They are moments in time when running allows you to see how wonderful your life it. — Kara Goucher
The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape our history. — Stephen Jay Gould
So the world is much more correlated than we give credit to. And so we see more of what Nassim Taleb calls "black swan events" - rare events happen more often than they should because the world is more correlated. — Richard Thaler
We need to get beyond the politics of the moment, the deficit of the hour, the military count of the day, the numbers that rarely shape events. Our long-term interests must be in people and in the values of democracy and individual liberty. — Bill Bradley
[...] Technology has tended to devaluate the traditional vision-inducing materials. The illumination of a city, for example, was once a rare event, reserved for victories and national holidays, for the canonization of saints and the crowning of kings. Now it occurs nightly and celebrates the virtues of gin, cigarettes and toothpaste. — Aldous Huxley
Discipline your mind to see the good in every situation and look on the best side of every event.
It is very rare or almost impossible that an event can be negative from all points of view. — Dalai Lama
The history of life is more adequately represented by a picture of 'punctuated equilibria' than by the notion of phyletic gradualism. The history of evolution is not one of stately unfolding, but a story of homeostatic equilibria, disturbed only 'rarely' (i.e. rather often in the fullness of time) by rapid and episodic events of speciation. — Stephen Jay Gould
I want to compete in the next Olympics. If I go to Rio, it will be my third time, which is a rare feat for an Indian athlete. For me, Olympics is important because it's the biggest event on earth for a sports person. I hope this time around I come back with a medal. — Vijender Singh
In the most commonplace, tiresome, ridiculous, malicious, coarse, crude, or even crooked people or events I had to seek out rare things, good things, comic things, and I did so. — William Saroyan
It's rare that I actually have a story in my head. I have events or 'what's the next move?' Like, Maggie, 'where's she going to go in this story, where's she going to end up?' Then the story has to fill in the in-between, and that comes as I'm starting it. — Jaime Hernandez
One of the problems with episodic television of any color is that everything has got to be okay at the end of the episode so it can start again next week. So the events that occur are rarely life-changing. But with film, you can say that this thing only happened once; this is a major thing that happened to these people. — Peter Capaldi
If there is one thing the psychic taught me, it's that people and events are rarely who and what we think they are. They are more meaningful, more worth our attention-part of some finely choreographed, eternal dance that we would be wise to bow down before in gratitude and humility — Leslie Morgan Steiner
These elites, preferring to work in private, are rarely found posed for photographers, and their influence upon events has therefore to be deduced from what is known of the agencies they employ. — Harold Wallace Rosenthal
Great men are rare, poets are rarer, but the great man who is a poet, transfiguring his greatness, is the rarest of all events. — John Drinkwater
Adamson feels that drug developers are unreasonably concerned about rare events. The reality is children tolerate phase I therapy new agents being tested to find the best dosage and possible side-effects as well as or better than adults, ... Once the initial studies are done that is, phase I trials in adults study should begin in children. — Peter Adamson
Human beings are accustomed to think of intellect as the power of having and controlling ideas and of ability to learn as synonymous with ability to have ideas. But learning by having ideas is really one of the rare and isolated events in nature. — Edward Thorndike
Events alone rarely provide much guide to the future. — Walter Lord
In the immediate postwar era, financial crises in advanced countries were rare events, and before 1970 did not happen at all. Since then they have occurred more often, and 2008 was the most damaging of them all to date. If we have moved back to a regime of regular financial crises - like the one we had from the 1870s to the 1930s - then our economic future will be very different from our recent past. — Alan M. Taylor
In fact, the very nature of an X-event is that it is both rare and surprising. So I would not say that any specific X-event is likely. What I would say, though, is that some X-event is not only plausible, but very likely in a time scale of a few years. — John L. Casti
The Obama administration rarely demonstrated the ability to shift gears and change policy in its first year. Even in the face of historic events such as the continuing demonstrations against Iran's regime, it stuck devotedly to prior plans. — Elliott Abrams
Saturday mornings in spring should always start with a jolt of dance by Paul Taylor performed by Taylor 2. The touring ensemble, an adjunct of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, offered a rare New York performance... It was an impressive event, presented by a group of highly individualistic dancers. — Jennifer Dunning
In the rare event that the Supreme Court refuses to play along [...] there is always a perfectly legal, extra-constitutional, quasi-legislative, quasi-executive, quasi-judicial, "independent" regulatory commission or executive agency to kill off or override constitutional protections. — Ilana Mercer
I often think of that rare fulfilling joy, when I am in the presence of some wonderful alignment of events. Where the light, the colour, the shapes and the balance all interlock so beautifully that I feel truly overwhelmed by the wonder of it. — Charlie Waite
Natalie Bakopoulos has that rare gift, the ability to imagine a traumatic historical event in the form of individual lives and ordinary details. The Green Shore is compelling, personal, and full of quietly real moments. — Elizabeth Kostova
Something special can happen late at night in a jazz club. As the crowd thins, the musicians intuitively sense that those few who have stayed, have stayed for a reason. A reciprocity of need and desire inspires the musicians to dig as deeply into their talent and souls as they are able. This mysterious and transformative confluence of events rarely happens in concert. It is the province of the nightclub. — Patricia Barber
It is very rare I come to an event where I’m like the fifth or sixth most interesting person. — Barack Obama
The real thing that physics tell us about the universe is that it's big, rare event happens all the time — including life — and that doesn't mean it's special. — Lawrence M. Krauss
She opened her mouth but did not immediately speak, and I felt, simultaneously, the impulse to coax the words from her and the impulse to suppress them. I always thought I wanted to know a secret, or I wanted an event to unfold – I wanted my life to start – but in those rare moments when it seemed like something might actually change, panic shot through me. — Curtis Sittenfeld
In Conclusion
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