Rafael

“Many readers responded, among them Marcel Proust, who took delight in the question. “I think that life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die as you say,” he wrote. “Just think of how many projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it—our life—hides from us, made invisible by our laziness which, certain of a future, delays them incessantly.” His point being, how unfortunate that it takes being aware of an ending”
― Alan Burdick, Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation

“Stock prices in general follow changes in company fortunes. Investors who focus excessively on the short run are ignoring a mountain of evidence demonstrating that most surges in earnings are unsustainable. On the other hand, companies that encounter problems do not let matters slide indefinitely. Managers will set to work making the hard decisions to put their company back on track”
― Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

“Why, given their advanced mathematical ideas, did the Arabs not proceed to probability theory and risk management? The answer, I believe, has to do with their view of life. Who determines our future: the fates, the gods, or ourselves? The idea of risk management emerges only when people believe that they are to some degree free agents. Like the Greeks and the early Christians, the fatalistic Muslims were not yet ready to take the leap.”
― Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

“but between reject and not—reject. You can decide that the probability that you are wrong is so small that you should not reject the hypothesis. You can decide that the probability that you are wrong is so large that you should reject the hypothesis. But with any probability short of zero that you are wrong—certainty rather than uncertainty—you cannot accept a hypothesis.”
― Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk