Malcolm Gladwell Quotes

“The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and re-imagines the world.”

World Writing Imagination Leadership Vision Creativity Creative Imagine Wise Words Paper Clean Positivity Sheets Visionaries Visionary Leaders Rethinking Visionary Leadership

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“We don't know where our first impressions come from or precisely what they mean, so we don't always appreciate their fragility.”

Knows Firsts Mean Philosophy Body Appreciate Medicine Senses Impression Fragility Soma First Impression

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“What do we tell our children? Haste makes waste. Look before you leap. Stop and think. Don't judge a book by its cover. We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible and spending as much time as possible in deliberation.”

Thinking Believe Looks Children Book Information Judging Waste Our Children Spending Leap Gathering Better Off Haste Deliberation Judging A Book By Its Cover Haste Makes Waste

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“There will be statues of Bill Gates across the Third World. There's a reasonable shot that - because of his money - we will cure malaria.”

World Shots Thirds Bills Cures Reasonable Gates Statues Third World Malaria

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“The key to good decision making is not knowledge... It's whether our work fulfills us.”

Leadership Decision Keys Decision Making Blink Good Decision Outliers

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Sometimes [genius] is just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.”

Years Sometimes Genius Twenties Tables Kitchen Kitchen Table

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“The conventional wisdom is often wrong. Crime didn't keep soaring in the 1990s, money alone doesn't win elections, and - surprise - drinking eight glasses of water a day has never actually been shown to do a thing for your health. Conventional wisdom is often shoddily formed and devilishly difficult to see through, but it can be done.”

Done Pain Winning Difficult Water Crime Election Drinking Surprise Glasses Eight Therapy Injury Conventional Soar Conventional Wisdom

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“If your parents are billionaires, that might actually be an obstacle to your own happiness and self-development. If you go to Oxford or Harvard, that might actually thwart your desire to graduate with a science or math degree.”

Ifs Self Might Desire Parent Development Degrees Obstacles Math Graduates Self Development Harvard Billionaire Oxford

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push - in just the right place - it can be tipped.”

World Looks May Seems Climate Change Right Place Tipping Tipping Point

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“There’s this powerful phrase in the legal world, “Difficult cases make bad law.” The exception is the difficult case. You can’t generalize them by definition. So although they are fascinating, they don’t solve any problem because they’re so one of a kind.”

World Kind Problem Law Difficult Powerful Cases Definitions Solve Phrases Fascinating Exception One Of A Kind Bad Laws

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“If you think success is about so many more things and is so much more arbitrary, then you can be much more open to the idea that you can be Ben Fountain and publish your great book at forty-nine.”

Ifs Thinking Book Ideas Nine Forty Fountain Arbitrary Publish Great Book

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“By shifting the balance away from the individual we open the door for the individual. Because we make it obvious that anyone can do it given the right circumstance.”

Individual Given Can Do Doors Balance Circumstances Obvious Shifting

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“I'm totally engaging in cultural stereotyping, no question about it. But I think it's OK because I'm doing it for a reason, for a good reason.”

Thinking Reason Stereotype Engaging

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“So long as the stereotype is used as a way of understanding how to fix the problem as opposed to demonizing a people or writing them off, then I think it's OK.”

People Thinking Way Writing Long Problem Used Understanding Stereotype

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“It changes how people read you if you believe in God. It gives insight into your motivation, how you look at problems and how you deal with people.”

People Ifs Giving Believe Looks Problem Motivation Deals Insight Believe In God If You Believe

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“People at CDC [Centers for Disease Control] who cut their teeth on diseases over the last 10 years have started to think of crime as another disease, and using some of these same concepts. It was something that was in the air in that world, but it was time to bust it out and apply it to any number of different social epidemics.”

People Thinking World Years Different Lasts Social Numbers Cutting Air Crime Disease Concepts Teeth Epidemics

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“I think actually the marketing community is approaching a crisis: There are just too many messages competing for too little attention. That is the fundamental problem.”

Thinking Littles Problem Community Attention Messages Crisis Fundamentals Marketing Competing

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“We are approaching levels - if we're not beyond levels - of threshold for the number of messages that consumers can take in in a given day. There is a kind of hunger for some kind of new approach to getting the word out about something.”

Ifs Kind Given Levels Numbers Approach Messages Hunger Consumers Threshold New Approach

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“I'm someone who can provide an intellectual framework, but I can't tell people who are trying to sell Product X how to do that because I don't know, and I would be faking it if I attempted to step into that role.”

People Ifs Knows Trying I Can Would Be Steps Roles Products Intellectual Sells Framework Faking It

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Anyone who knows the marketing world knows that ideas come and go, and people latch onto things and think of them as a kind of solution.”

People Thinking Knows World Kind Ideas Solutions Marketing Comes And Goes Latches

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Innovators have to be open. They have to be able to imagine things that others cannot and be willing to challenge their own preconceptions. They also need to be conscientious. An innovator who has brilliant ideas but lacks the discipline and persistence to carry them out is merely a dreamer ... But crucially, innovators need to be disagreeable ... They are people willing to take social risks-to do things that others might disapprove of.”

People Needs Ideas Might Able Social Challenges Creativity Imagine Risk Design Willing Discipline Brilliant Persistence Dreamer Innovators Brilliant Ideas Disagreeable Preconceptions

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“If you are going to do something truly innovative, you have to be someone who does not value social approval. You can't need social approval to go forward. Otherwise, how would you ever do the thing that you are doing?”

Ifs Needs Doe Values Social Approval Innovative

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“It's very hard to find someone who's successful and dislikes what they do.”

Hard Successful Dislike

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“An incredibly high percentage of successful entrepreneurs are dyslexic. That's one of the little-known facts.”

Littles Facts Known Successful Entrepreneur Percentages Successful Entrepreneurs Dyslexic

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“A lot of what is most beautiful about the world arises from struggle.”

World Beautiful Struggle Arise

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“You can't concentrate on doing anything if you are thinking, “What's gonna happen if it doesn't go right?”

Ifs Thinking Happens

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“When people in authority want the rest of us to behave, it matters-first and foremost-how they behave.”

People Want Firsts Matter Authority Behave Goliath

Book:David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Source: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

“Happiness, in one sense, is a function of how closely our world conforms to the infinite variety of human preference.”

World Humans Function Infinite Variety Our World Conform Preference

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“It's as if you were interested in fashion and your neighbor when you were growing up happened to be Giorgio Armani.”

Ifs Growing Up Growing Happened Fashion Neighbor Armani

Book:Outliers: The Story of Success

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

“Performance ought to improve with experience, and pressure is an obstacle that the diligent can overcome.”

Ought Performances Overcoming Pressure Obstacles Diligent

Book:What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures

Source: What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures

“Acquaintances represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.”

Social Powerful Source Acquaintance Tipping Point Social Power

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard.”

Hard Hard Work Function Persistence Willingness Outliers Hard Work Success Hard Work Motivational Hard Work And Success Hard Work And Persistence Doggedness

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“I became convinced that knowing lots of people was kind of skill, something that the diligent can overcome.”

People Kind Knowing Skills Overcoming Convinced Diligent

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Affect, Imagery, Consciousness, a four-volume work so dense that its readers were evenly divided between those who understood it and thought it was brilliant and those who did not understand it and thought it was brilliant.”

Consciousness Four Reader Understood Brilliant Divided Volume Imagery Dense

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key area. The Law of the Few says that Connectors, Mavens, and Salesman are responsible for starting word-of-mouth epidemics, which means that if you are interested in starting a word-of-mouth epidemic , your resources ought to be solely concentrated on these three groups. No one else matters.”

Ifs Mean Matter Law Three Groups Keys Ought Mouths Resources Areas Responsible Starting Salesman Epidemics Concentrating Word Of Mouth Connectors Mavens

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“We have the kind of self-made-man myth, which says that super-successful people did it themselves.”

People Men Kind Made Self Successful Myth Successful People Self Made Self Made Man

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“The 10,000-hours rule says that if you look at any kind of cognitively complex field, from playing chess to being a neurosurgeon, we see this incredibly consistent pattern that you cannot be good at that unless you practice for 10,000 hours, which is roughly ten years, if you think about four hours a day.”

Ifs Thinking Years Looks Kind Hours Practice Four Fields Ten Complexes Patterns Be Good Chess Consistent Playing Chess Neurosurgeons

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Asian culture has a profoundly different relationship to work. It rewards people who are persistent.”

People Different Culture Rewards Working It Persistent Asian Different Relationships Asian Culture

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Take a random group of 8-year-old American and Japanese kids, give them all a really, really hard math problem, and start a stopwatch. The American kids will give up after 30, 40 seconds. If you let the test run for 15 minutes, the Japanese kids will not have given up. You have to take it away.”

Ifs Giving Years Hard Problem Running Kids Given Groups Minutes Giving Up Tests Math Seconds Given Up Math Problems

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“I know it sounds hard to believe, but habits laid down by our ancestors persist even after the conditions that created those habits have gone away.”

Knows Believe Hard Sound Gone Conditions Habit Ancestor Persist Hard To Believe Gone Away

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Instead of thinking about talent as something that you acquire, talent should be thought of as something that you develop.”

Thinking Should Talent Acquire

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“When it's easy to make money, you have no incentive to think about development of talent.”

Thinking Easy Talent Development Making Money Incentives

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Father: 'Anything but journalism.' I rebelled.”

Father Journalism

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“I think that persistence and stubbornness and hard work are probably, at the end of the day, more important than the willingness to take a risk.”

Thinking Important Ends Hard Risk Hard Work Persistence The End Of The Day Willingness Stubbornness

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Success is deeply rooted in time and place. You may have the drive to read tons of books on biology. But if there are no books on biology in your library, and the library is never open, your drive is meaningless.”

Ifs May Book Library Biology Meaningless Rooted

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“The world is not a meritocracy, as much as we may like to pretend that it is. And we have a long way to go before we really reward people based on their own merit.”

People World Way May Long Rewards Merit Long Way Meritocracy Long Way To Go

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“I'm in the storytelling business, and so you're always drawn to the unusual. And early on, I discovered that's the easiest way to tell stories... If you come up through a newspaper as I did, your whole goal is to get a story on the front page, and you only get something on the front page if it's unusual.”

Ifs Way Whole Stories Goal Fronts Pages Come Up Newspapers Storytelling Unusual

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“People can't do much about the fate part, but we can certainly do a lot about the man part.”

People Men Fate He Man

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“I don't think people are averse to thinking about things in a deep way, but we have limited time and opportunity to think about things in a deep way. I think that's why there is an appetite for non-fiction - it gives people the opportunity to reexamine ordinary experience and be smarter about it.”

People Thinking Way Giving Opportunity Fiction Ordinary Appetite Smarter Non Fiction Limited Time

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“When I see someone who reads something of mine and draws something out of it that's very different from my perspective, I think that's actually cool. Sometimes it's worrisome when you feel they badly misinterpret it, but it just says that they're thinking, and they're bringing their own interpretation to bear on it. [...] That's part of the wonderful thing about putting words into the world, and if I was worried about that, I couldn't be a writer.”

Ifs Thinking World Feels Different Sometimes Wonderful Mines Perspective Bears Draws Worried Interpretation Wonderful Things

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

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