malcolm-gladwell Quotes About thinking

“The power of knowing, in that first two seconds, is not a gift given magically to a fortunate few. It is an ability that we can all cultivate for ourselves.”

Thinking Knowing Blink

Book:Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Source: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“That fundamentally undermines your ability to access the best part of your instincts. So my advice to those people would be stop thinking and introspecting so much and do a little more acting.”

People Thinking Littles Would Be Ability Acting Advice Instinct Access

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Have you ever wondered... how religious movements get started? Usually, we think of them as a product of highly charismatic evangelists... but the spread of any new and contagious ideology also has a lot to do with the skillful use of group power.”

Thinking Use Religion Religious Groups Movement Products Spread Ideology Contagious Skillful Charismatic Evangelists

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Our unconscious is really good at quick decision-making - it often delivers a better answer than more deliberate and exhaustive ways of thinking.”

Thinking Way Decision Answers Unconscious Decision Making Deliberate Way Of Thinking Quick Decisions

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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“What we do as a community, as a society, for each other, matters as much as what we do for ourselves. It sounds a little trite, but there's a powerful amount of truth in that, I think.”

Thinking Littles Matter Sound Community Powerful Amount

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“David Epstein, the author of the best book on athletics in recent memory - "The Sports Gene" - wrote to me to say that he thinks I'm being overly generous. He points out that, for years, there used to be an "all-star challenge" on television, in which the best professional athletes from a variety of sports competed in a kind of makeshift decathlon.”

Thinking Years Kind Book Used Stars Sports Challenges Memories Television Athlete Used To Be Variety Generous Genes Athletics Professional Athlete All Stars Decathlon

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“It's just strange to think that so much of our enjoyment from sports comes from the elevation of arbitrary differences.”

Thinking Sports Differences Strange Enjoyment Arbitrary Elevation

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“I write my books to challenge my own feelings and theories. Perhaps most surprising was what I learned about rice farming. It was really interesting to think of how different Asian and Western cultures are as a result of the kinds of agricultural practices that our ancestors used for thousands of years. The life of a Chinese peasant in the Middle Ages was so dramatically different from the life of a European peasant - night and day different.”

“Clear writing is universal. People talk about writing down to an audience or writing up to an audience; I think that's nonsense. If you write in a way that is clear, transparent, and elegant, it will reach everyone.”

People Ifs Thinking Way Writing Audience Clear Universal Nonsense Elegant Transparent

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Choking is about thinking too much. Panic is about thinking too little. Choking is about loss of instinct. Panic is reversion to instinct. They may look the same, but they are worlds apart.”

Thinking World Looks May Littles Loss Too Much Instinct Panic Choke Thinking Too Much Worlds Apart

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“One of the things I think the police have to do is to stop behaving like armies.”

Thinking Army Police

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Trump is an innovator who has shown how out of step the political establishment was. Which I think, probably, in the long term will be healthy. We have to figure out how to reinvigorate our political institutions and he's demonstrating to us the urgency of that task.”

Thinking Long Political Term Healthy Long Term Urgency

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Do I think that American democracy ends if Trump is president? No! I think, there are plenty of checks and balances in place. I think he would do some damage to the country but we would recover. The office of the presidency and American democratic institutions are a lot stronger than one person. So if he wins, our job is just to keep the office strong, right? And hope he'll be replaced by something better!”

Thinking Country Winning Strong President Democracy Balance Office Stronger Democratic Plenty Replaced

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Truly successful decision-making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking.”

Thinking Inspirational Success Decision Successful Balance Instinct Intuition Rely Decision Making Deliberate Blink Instinct Intuition

Book:Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Source: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head.”

Thinking Giving Writing Doe Success Ability Failing Communication Succeed Glimpse Make You Think Good Writing

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“The lesson here is very simple. But it is striking how often it is overlooked. We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur. But that's the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today?”

“Do you see the consequences of the way we have chosen to think about success? Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung...We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play—and by “we” I mean society—in determining who makes it and who doesn’t.”

Thinking Way Mean Play Opportunity Roles Too Much Failing Missing Succeed Consequence Chosen Lifts Awe Passive About Success Outliers Missing Opportunity

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Character isn't what we think it is or, rather, what we want it to be. It isn't a stable, easily identifiable set of closely related traits, and it only seems that way because of a glitch in the way our brains are organized. Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context.”

Thinking Way Want Character Seems Together Certain Interest Brain Habit Circumstances Bounds Tendencies Related Organized Dependent Traits Stable Bundles Glitches

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“[Research] suggests that what we think of as free will is largely an illusion: much of the time, we are simply operating on automatic pilot, and the way we think and act – and how well we think and act on the spur of the moment – are a lot more susceptible to outside influences than we realize.”

Thinking Way Wells Moments Realizing Influence Research Illusion Free Will Pilots Spurs Susceptible Spur Of The Moment Outside Influences

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Nothing frustrates me more than someone who reads something of mine or anyone else's and says, angrily, 'I don't buy it.' Why are they angry? Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head—even if in the end you conclude that someone else's head is not a place you'd really like to be.”

Ifs Thinking Giving Writing Doe Ends Ability Failing Mines Succeed Angry Glimpse Make You Think Good Writing

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“...mediocre people find their way into positions of authority...because when it comes to even the most important positions, our selection decisions are a good deal less rational than we think.”

People Thinking Way Important Decision Deals Position Authority Rational Mediocre Selection

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Giants are not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear to give them strength are often the sources of great weakness.”

Thinking Giving Quality Source Weakness Giants

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Living a long life, the conventional wisdom at the time said, depended to a great extent on who we were-that is, our genes. It depended on the decisions we made-on what we chose to eat, and how much we chose to exercise, and how effectively we were treated by the medical system. No one was used to thinking about health in terms of community.”

Thinking Long Made Said Used Term Community Decision Exercise Medical Treated Genes Conventional Long Life Conventional Wisdom

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“There is more going on beneath the surface than we think, and more going on in little, finite moments of time than we would guess.”

Thinking Littles Moments Surface Finite Beneath The Surface

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“I have a new way of doing things, and I don’t care if you think I’m crazy.”

Ifs Thinking Way Care Crazy Don't Care I Don't Care New Ways New Ways Of Doing Things

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“If we think about emotion this way - as outside-in, not inside out - it is possible to understand how some people can have an enormous amount of influence over others. Some of us, after all, are very good at expressiing emotions and feelings, which means that we are far more emotionally contagious than the rest of us.”

People Ifs Thinking Way Mean Feelings Emotion Influence Amount Very Good Enormous Contagious

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“Part of me thinks that innovation, real innovation in health care delivery, needs to happen from the bottom to the top.”

Thinking Needs Real Happens Care Innovation Bottom Health Care Delivery

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“If you think advantage lies in resources, then you think the best educational system is the one that spends the most money.”

Ifs Thinking Lying Resources Advantage Educational Educational System Best Education

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“If everyone has to think outside the box, maybe it is the box that needs fixing.”

Ifs Thinking Needs Boxes Fixing Outside The Box Think Outside The Box

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“That's your responsibility as a person, as a human being - to constantly be updating your positions on as many things as possible. And if you don't contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you're not thinking.”

Ifs Thinking Humans Persons Human Beings Responsibility Position Bases

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“If you don't contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you're not thinking.”

Ifs Thinking Bases

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“The Tipping Point is the biography of an idea, and the idea is very simple. It is that the best way to understand the emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and flow of crime waves, or, for that matter, the transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth, or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.”

“We sometimes think of being good at mathematics as an innate ability. You either have "it" or you don't. But to Schoenfeld, it's not so much ability as attitude. You master mathematics if you are willing to try.”

Ifs Thinking Inspirational Trying Sometimes Motivational Ability Attitude Willing Masters Mathematics Be Good Innate Willing To Try

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“It is quite possible for people who have never met us and who have spent only twenty minutes thinking about us to come to a better understanding of who we are than people who have known us for years.”

People Thinking Years Understanding Known Minutes Mets Twenties Who We Are

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“So, it's a very, you know - maybe we're wrong in - you know, we go around thinking the innovator is the person who's first to kind of conceive of something. And maybe the innovation process continues down the line to the second and the third and the fourth entrant into a field.”

Thinking Knows Firsts Kind Persons Process Lines Fields Thirds Innovation Fourth Innovators

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

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