Nassim Nicholas Taleb:

"What we have here is a reliance on bogus measures."

"Our understanding of the world has proven to be extremely weak."

"I'll tell you one thing. You tend to think that the crisis is in its middle, or toward the end. I think we may be in the very beginning."

From the archive:

Why are we such suckers for numbers? To me, numbers flaunt a kind of bogus, unearned power, like border officials, or the doormen of trendy clubs.