35 pages 1 hour read

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2007

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Important Quotes

Quotation Mark Icon

"One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millennia of confirmatory sightings of millions of white swans."


(Prologue, Page xvii)

Black Swan events do not need to happen frequently, but their existence and possibility must be considered. The power of witnessing something new and unprecedented has the potential to change the way we see the world.

Quotation Mark Icon

"A small number of Black Swans explain almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives."


(Prologue, Page xviii)

According to Taleb, human history is less affected by an accumulation of everyday mundane events than by Black Swan events, which can transform our way of life. These outliers, though less numerous than white swan events, are far more impactful.

Quotation Mark Icon

"Ideas come and go, stories stay."


(Prologue, Page xxvii)

Taleb argues that philosophical abstractions or logical premises carry less power in the human imagination than stories, which help us reduce the events that occur around us to palatable narratives.