Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"Banking is a very treacherous business because you don't realize it is risky until it is too late. It is like calm waters that deliver huge storms."

"Being an economist is the least ethical profession, closer to charlatanism than any science."

"Failure saves lives. In the airline industry, every time a plane crashes the probability of the next crash is lowered by that. The Titanic saved lives because we're building bigger and bigger ships. So these people died, but we have effectively improved the safety of the system, and nothing failed in vain."

"Globalization has created this interlocking fragility. At no time in the history of the universe has the cancellation of a Christmas order in New York meant layoffs in China."

"I select a very small number of things to be sceptical about, such as markets, and on these I am hypersceptic. But I want to be fooled by randomness in art. I want the ceremonial of religion; we are made for it."

"I'm in favour of religion as a tamer of arrogance. For a Greek Orthodox, the idea of God as creator outside the human is not God in God's terms. My God isn't the God of George Bush."

"Never take advice from anyone in a tie. They'll bankrupt you. Don't ask a general for advice on war, and don't ask a broker for advice on money."

"Paul Krugman is a danger to society!"

"Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg didn't finish college. Too much emphasis is placed on formal education - I told my children not to worry about their grades but to enjoy learning."

"The next time you experience a blackout, take some solace by looking at the sky. You will not recognize it."

"We should ban banks from risk-taking because society is going to pay the price."

"What America does best is produce the ability to accept failure."

"What we need to do is break the financial community's grip on society."

"You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept."