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Outliers: The Story of Success

Book by Malcolm Gladwell · 20 quotes · Outliers, Success, Malcolm Gladwell

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Outliers: The Story of Success Quotes

“The conventional explanation for Jewish success, of course, is that Jews come from a literate, intellectual culture. They are famously "the people of the book." There is surely something to that. But it wasn't just the children of rabbis who went to law school. It was the children of garment workers. And their critical advantage in climbing the professional ladder wasn't the intellectual rigor you get from studying the Talmud. It was the practical intelligence and savvy you get from watching your father sell aprons on Hester Street.”

“¿Vemos ahora las consecuencias del modo que hemos decidido concebir al éxito? Cuando lo personalizamos tan profundamente, omitimos ocasiones de elevar a otros a un peldaño superior. Hacemos las reglas que frustran los logros. Amortizamos a la gente antes de tiempo como fracasados. Sentimos demasiado respeto por los que tienen éxito y demasiado poco por los que no. Por encima de todo nos hemos vuelto demasiado pasivos. Pasamos por alto el papel tan grande que desempeñamos — y este "nosotros" significa la "sociedad"— a la hora de determinar quién lo consigue y quién no.”

“What Lempert is saying is that by the only measure that a law school really ought to care about — how well its graduates do in the real world — minority students aren’t less qualified. They’re just as successful as white students. And why? Because even though the academic credentials of minority students at Michigan aren’t as good as those of white students, the quality of students at the law school is high enough that they’re still above the threshold. They are smart enough. Knowledge of a law student’s test scores is of little help if you are faced with a classroom of clever law students.”

“The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievements in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It's not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't.”

“La clase de errores que causan los accidentes de avión suelen ser invariablemente de trabajo en equipo y de comunicación. Un piloto sabe algo importante y por algún motivo no se lo dice al otro. Un piloto hace algo mal y el otro piloto no se percata del error. Hay que resolver una situación difícil dando una compleja serie de pasos, y por alguna razón los pilotos no logran coordinarse y olvidan uno de los pasos.”

“Marita doesn't need a brand-new school with acres of playing fields and gleaming facilities. She doesn't need a laptop, a smaller class, a teacher with a PhD, or a bigger apartment. She doesn't need a hight IQ or a mind as quick as Chris Langan's. All those things would be nice, of course. But they miss the point. Marita just need a chance. And look at the chance she was given! Someone brought a little bit of the rice paddy to the South Bronx and explained to her the miracle of meaningful work.”