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But is the commercial theory of learning true? Daniel Anderson says that new research suggests that children actually don't like commercials as much as we thought they did because commercials don't tell stories, and stories have a particular salience and importance to young people. By Malcolm Gladwell True Theory Learning Commercials Anderson

I don't go to an office, so I write at home. I like to write in the morning, if possible; that's when my mind is freshest. I might write for a couple of hours, and then I head out to have lunch and read the paper. Then I write for a little bit longer if I can, then probably go to the library or make some phone calls. Every day is a little bit different. I'm not highly routinized, so I spend a lot of time wandering around New York City with my laptop in my bag, wondering where I'm going to end up next. It's a fairly idyllic life for someone who likes writing. By Malcolm Gladwell Write Office Home Bit Morning

We have become obsessed with what is good about small classrooms and oblivious about what also can be good about large classes. It's a strange thing isn't it, to have an educational philosophy that thinks of the other students in the classroom with your child as competitors for the attention of the teacher and not allies in the adventure of learning. By Malcolm Gladwell Good Classes Obsessed Small Oblivious

The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family. She By Malcolm Gladwell Willow Family Sacred Generations Life

We all know that successful people come from hardy seeds. But do we know enough about the sunlight By Malcolm Gladwell Seeds Successful People Hardy Sunlight

The mistake we make in thinking of character as something unified and all-encompassing is very similar to a kind of blind spot in the way we process information. Psychologists call this tendency the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), which is a fancy way of saying that when it comes to interpreting other people's behavior, human beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of situation and context. By Malcolm Gladwell Mistake Information Make Character Importance

We live in a world saturated with information. We have virtually unlimited amounts of data at our fingertips at all times, and we're well versed in the arguments about the dangers of not knowing enough and not doing our homework. But what I have sensed is an enormous frustration with the unexpected costs of knowing too much, of being inundated with information. We have come to confuse information with understanding. By Malcolm Gladwell Information Live World Saturated Knowing

Shortly after the birth control pill was approved for public distribution, one woman wrote to John Rock, its inventor, "You should be afraid to meet your maker." Rock, despite being Catholic replied, "My dear Madam, in my faith, we are taught that the Lord is with us always. When my time comes, there will be no need for introductions." By Malcolm Gladwell Rock John Shortly Distribution Inventor

All of us, when it comes to personality, naturally think in terms of absolutes: that a person is a certain way or is not a certain way. But what Zimbardo and Hartshorne and May are suggesting is that this is a mistake, that when we think only in terms of inherent traits and forget the role of situations, we're deceiving ourselves about the real causes of human behavior. By Malcolm Gladwell Terms Personality Naturally Absolutes Person

Legitimacy is based on three things. First of all, the people who are asked to obey authority have to feel like they have a voicethat if they speak up, they will be heard. Second, the law has to be predictable. There has to be a reasonable expectation that the rules tomorrow are going to be roughly the same as the rules today. And third, the authority has to be fair. It can't treat one group differently from another. By Malcolm Gladwell Legitimacy Things Based Rules Authority

Extraordinary achievement is less about talent than it is about opportunity. By Malcolm Gladwell Extraordinary Opportunity Achievement Talent

To be someone's best friend requires a minimum investment of time. More than that, though, it takes emotional energy. Caring about someone deeply is exhausting. By Malcolm Gladwell Time Friend Requires Minimum Investment

I deal with writer's block by lowering my expectations. I think the trouble starts when you sit down to write and imagine that you will achieve something magical and magnificent - and when you don't, panic sets in. The solution is never to sit down and imagine that you will achieve something magical and magnificent. I write a little bit, almost every day, and if it results in two or three or (on a good day) four good paragraphs, I consider myself a lucky man. Never try to be the hare. All hail the tortoise. By Malcolm Gladwell Magnificent Expectations Imagine Achieve Magical

We pretend that success is exclusively a matter of individual merit. But there's nothing in any of the histories we've looked at so far to suggest things are that simple. These are stories, instead, about people who were given a special opportunity to work really hard and seized it, and who happened to come of age at a time when that extraordinary effort was rewarded by the rest of society. Their success was not just of their own making. It was a product of the world in which they grew up. By Malcolm Gladwell Merit Pretend Exclusively Matter Individual

Hey hey its Brooke im 12 and having trouble my teacher told me to get on here sooo yaaa see ya soon pic uplaodin soon!!!!!!!!!!!! By Malcolm Gladwell Brooke Hey Trouble Teacher Told

Cultures of honor tend to take root in highlands and other marginally fertile areas, such as Sicily or the mountainous Basque regions of Spain. If you live on some rocky mountainside, the explanation goes, you can't farm. You probably raise goats or sheep, and the kind of culture that grows up around being a herdsman is very different from the culture that grows up around growing crops. The survival of a farmer depends on the cooperation of others in the community. But a herdsman is off by himself. Farmers also don't have to worry that their livelihood will be stolen in the night, because crops can't easily be stolen unless, of course, a thief wants to go to the trouble of harvesting an entire field on his own. But a herdsman does have to worry. He's under constant threat of ruin through the loss of his animals. So he has to be aggressive: he has to make it clear, through his words and deeds, that he is not weak. By Malcolm Gladwell Spain Sicily Basque Herdsman Culture

You can take a pitchman and make a great actor out of him, but you cannot take an actor and always make a great pitchman out of him," he says. The pitchman must make you applaud and take out your money. He must be able to execute what in pitchman's parlance is called "the turn" - the perilous, crucial moment where he goes from entertainer to businessman. By Malcolm Gladwell Great Actor Make Pitchman Money

A man employs the full power of the state in his grief and ends up plunging his government into a fruitless and costly experiment. A woman who walks away from the promise of power finds the strength to forgive - and saves her friendship, her marriage, and her sanity. The world is turned upside down. - Chapter 8 By Malcolm Gladwell Experiment Power Man Employs Full

In life, most of us are highly skilled at suppressing action. All the improvisation teacher has to do is to reverse this skill and he creates very 'gifted' improvisers. Bad improvisers block action, often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action. By Malcolm Gladwell Action Life Improvisers Highly Skilled

We spend a lot of time and effort trying to figure out who's going to be a good NFL quarterback, and we do a very bad job of it. We don't really know. And we also spend a lot of time trying to figure out who will be a good teacher, and we're really bad at that too. We don't know if someone is going to be a good teacher when they start teaching. So what should we do in those situations in which predictions are useless? By Malcolm Gladwell Nfl Good Lot Figure Quarterback

Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year's worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half's worth of material. That difference amounts to a year's worth of learning in a single year. Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a bad school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. By Malcolm Gladwell Year Teacher Hanushek Stanford Worth

The Stickiness Factor says that there are specific ways of making a contagious message memorable; there are relatively simple changes in the presentation and structuring of information that can make a big difference in how much of an impact it makes. By Malcolm Gladwell Stickiness Factor Memorable Specific Making

Asian children can perform basic functions, such as addition, far more easily. Ask an English-speaking seven-year-old to add thirty-seven plus twenty-two in her head, and she has to convert the words to numbers (37 + 22). Only then can she do the math: 2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 and 20 is 50, which makes 59. Ask an Asian child to add three-tens-seven and two-tens-two, and then the necessary equation is right there, embedded in the sentence. No number translation is necessary: It's five-tens-nine. By Malcolm Gladwell Functions Addition Easily Asian Children

You walk into the class in second grade. You can't read. What are you going to do if you're going to make it? You identify the smart kid. You make friends with him. You sit next to him. You grow a team around you. You delegate your work to others. You learn how to talk your way out of a tight spot. By Malcolm Gladwell Grade Walk Class Make Read

There were history's gifts to my family-and if the resources of that grocer, the fruits of those riots, the possibilities of that culture, and the privileges of that skin tone had been extended to others, how many more would now live a life of fulfillment, in a beautiful house high on a hill? By Malcolm Gladwell Grocer Riots Culture Fulfillment Hill

My perfect number is eighteen: that's enough bodies in the room that no one person needs to feel vulnerable, but everyone can feel important. Eighteen divides handily into groups of two or three or six - all varying degrees of intimacy in and of themselves. With eighteen students, I can always get to each one of them when I need to. Twenty-four is my second favorite number - the extra six bodies make it even more likely that there will be a dissident among them, a rebel or two to challenge the status quo. But the trade-off with twenty-four is that it verges on having the energetic mass of an audience instead of a team. Add six more of them to hit thirty bodies and we've weakened the energetic connections so far that even the most charismatic of teachers can't maintain the magic all the time. By Malcolm Gladwell Feel Eighteen Vulnerable Important Bodies

you weren't that unhappy. "Contrast him with the Air Corps man of the same education and longevity," Stouffer wrote. His chance of getting promoted to officer was greater than 50 percent. "If he had earned a [promotion], so had the majority of his fellows in the branch, and his achievement was less conspicuous than in the MP's. If he had failed to earn a rating while the majority had succeeded, he had more reason to feel a sense of personal frustration, which could be expressed as criticism of the promotion system." Stouffer's point is that we form our impressions not globally, by placing ourselves in the broadest possible context, but locally - by comparing ourselves to people "in the same boat as ourselves." Our sense of how deprived we are is relative. This is one of those observations that is both obvious and (upon exploration) deeply profound, and it explains all kinds of otherwise puzzling observations. Which do you By Malcolm Gladwell Unhappy Stouffer Contrast Air Corps

We have trouble estimating dramatic, exponential change. We cannot conceive that a piece of paper folded over 50 times could reach the sun. There are abrupt limits to the number of cognitive categories we can make and the number of people we can truly love and the number of acquaintances we can truly know. We throw up our hands at a problem phrased in an abstract way, but have no difficulty at all solving the same problem rephrased as a social dilemma. All of these things are expressions of the peculiarities of the human mind and heart, a refutation of the notion that the way we function and communicate and process information is straightforward and transparent. It is not. It is messy and opaque. By Malcolm Gladwell Number Dramatic Exponential Change Trouble

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 By Malcolm Gladwell Business Unusual Storytelling Drawn Front

Wolf was taken aback. This was the 1950s, years before the advent of cholesterol-lowering drugs and aggressive measures to prevent heart disease. Heart attacks were an epidemic in the United States. They were the leading cause of death in men under the age of sixty-five. It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease. Wolf decided to investigate. He enlisted the support of some of his students and colleagues from Oklahoma. They gathered together the death certificates from residents of the By Malcolm Gladwell Heart Aback Disease Wolf States

Mimicry, they argue, is also one of the means by which we infect each other with our emotions. In other words, if I smile and you see me and smile in response - even a microsmile that takes no more than several milliseconds - it's not just you imitating or empathizing with me. It may also be a way that I can pass on my happiness to you. By Malcolm Gladwell Mimicry Argue Emotions Infect Smile

Think, for example, has a higher suicide rate: countries whose citizens declare themselves to be very happy, such as Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, and Canada? or countries like Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, whose citizens describe themselves as not very happy at all? Answer: the so-called happy countries. It's the same phenomenon as in the Military Police and the Air Corps. If you are depressed in a place where most people are pretty unhappy, you compare yourself to those around you and you don't feel all that bad. But can you imagine how difficult it must be to be depressed in a country where everyone else has a big smile on their face?2 Caroline Sacks's decision to evaluate herself, then, by looking around her organic chemistry classroom was not some strange and irrational behavior. It is what human beings do. We compare ourselves to those in the same situation as ourselves, which means that students in an elite school - except, perhaps, By Malcolm Gladwell Denmark Iceland Italy Portugal Switzerland

look at the last column, which totals up all the summer gains from first grade to fifth grade. The reading scores of the poor kids go up by .26 points. When it comes to reading skills, poor kids learn nothing when school is not in session. The reading scores of the rich kids, by contrast, go up by a whopping 52.49 points. Virtually By Malcolm Gladwell Grade Points Reading Kids Column

Had a girl in this class," Corcoran said. "She was a horrible math student in fifth grade. She cried every Saturday when we did remedial stuff. Huge tears and tears." At the memory, Corcoran got a little emotional himself. He looked down. "She just e-mailed us a couple weeks ago. She's in college now. She's an accounting major. By Malcolm Gladwell Corcoran Class Girl Tears Saturday

If you are a white person who would like to treat black people as equals in every way - who would like to have a set of associations with blacks that are as positive as those that you have with whites - it requires more than a simple commitment to equality. It requires that you change your life so that you are exposed to minorities on a regular basis and become comfortable with them and familiar with the best of their culture, so that when you want to meet, hire, date, or talk to a member of a minority, you aren't betrayed by your hesitation and discomfort. By Malcolm Gladwell Requires Equality White Black Blacks

I have profoundly mixed feelings about the Affordable Care Act. What I love about it is its impulse. It attempts to deal with this intractable problem in American health care life, which is that a significant portion of the population does not have access to quality medical care. By Malcolm Gladwell Act Affordable Care Profoundly Mixed

Paul Revere's ride is perhaps the most famous historical example of a word-of-mouth epidemic. A piece of extraordinary news traveled a long distance in a very short time, mobilizing an entire region to arms. Not all word-of-mouth epidemics are this sensational, of course. But it is safe to say that word of mouth is-even in this age of mass communications and multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns-still the most important form of human communication By Malcolm Gladwell Revere Paul Ride Famous Historical

It was not the privileged and the fortunate who took in the Jews in France. It was the marginal and damaged, which should remind us that there are real limits to what evil and misfortune can accomplish. If you take away the gift of reading, you create the gift of listening. If you bomb a city, you leave behind death and destruction. But you create a community of remote misses. If you take away a mother or a father, you cause suffering and despair. But one time in ten, out of that despair rises as indomitable force. You see the giant and the shepherd in the Valley of Elah and your eye is drawn to the man with sword and shield and the glittering armor. But so much of what is beautiful and valuable in the world comes from the shepherd, who has more strength and purpose than we ever imagine. By Malcolm Gladwell France Jews Privileged Fortunate Gift

People who bring transformative change have courage, know how to re-frame the problem and have a sense of urgency. By Malcolm Gladwell People Courage Urgency Bring Transformative

High-tech companies like Google or Microsoft carefully measure the cognitive abilities of prospective employees out of the same belief: they are convinced that those at the very top of the IQ scale have the greatest potential. By Malcolm Gladwell Google Microsoft Hightech Belief Potential

When you remove time," de becker says, "you are subject to the lowest-quality intuitive reaction By Malcolm Gladwell Time Reaction Remove Becker Subject

When two people talk, they don't just fall into physical and aural harmony. They also engage in what is called motor mimicry. If you show people pictures of a smiling face or a frowning face, they'll smile or frown back, although perhaps only in muscular changes so fleeting that they can only be captured with electronic sensors. If I hit my thumb with a hammer, most people watching will grimace: they'll mimic my emotional state. This is what is meant, in the technical sense, by empathy. We imitate each other's emotions as a way of expressing support and caring and, even more basically, as a way of communicating with each other. By Malcolm Gladwell Talk Harmony People Fall Physical

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Tipping Point Simple Biography Idea

Two Dutch researchers did a study in which they had groups of students answer forty-two fairly demanding questions from the board game Trivial Pursuit. Half were asked to take five minutes beforehand to think about what it would mean to be a professor and write down everything that came to mind. Those students got 55.6 percent of the questions right. The other half of the students were asked to first sit and think about soccer hooligans. They ended up getting 42.6 percent of the Trivial Pursuit questions right. The "professor" group didn't know more than the "soccer hooligan" group. They weren't smarter or more focused or more serious. They were simply in a "smart" frame of mind, and, clearly, associating themselves with the idea of something smart, like a professor, made it a lot easier - in that stressful instant after a trivia question was asked - to blurt out the right answer. By Malcolm Gladwell Dutch Trivial Pursuit Asked Students

I don't think we [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. By Malcolm Gladwell Things Deep Opportunity People Averse

Grinnell College MIT McGill University Georgia Institute of Technology By Malcolm Gladwell Technology College Mit University Georgia

It was a huge mistake," Chris recalls. "I had a real case of culture shock. I was a crew-cut kid who had been working as a ranch hand in the summers in Montana, and there I was, with a whole bunch of long-haired city kids, most of them from New York. And these kids had a whole different style than I was used to. I couldn't get a word in edgewise at class. They were very inquisitive. Asking questions all the time. I was crammed into a dorm room. There were four of us, and the other three guys had a whole different other lifestyle. They were smoking pot. They would bring their girlfriends into the room. I had never smoked pot before. So basically I took to hiding in the library. By Malcolm Gladwell Chris Mistake Recalls Huge Kids

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Writing Universal Audience Clear Transparent

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Wondered Started Religious Movements Evangelists

Economists often talk about the 80/20 Principle, which is the idea that in any situation roughly 80 percent of the "work" will be done by 20 percent of the participants. In most societies, 20 percent of criminals commit 80 percent of crimes. Twenty percent of motorists cause 80 percent of all accidents. Twenty percent of beer drinkers drink 80 percent of all beer. When it comes to epidemics, though, this disproportionality becomes even more extreme: a tiny percentage of people do the majority of the work. By Malcolm Gladwell Percent Principle Economists Roughly Participants

Outliers are those who have been given opportunities - and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them. By Malcolm Gladwell Outliers Opportunities Strength Presence Mind

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Angrily Frustrates Reads Mine Buy

All positive traits, states, and experiences have costs that at high levels may begin to outweigh their benefits. By Malcolm Gladwell States Traits Benefits Positive Experiences

What a gifted child is, in many ways, is a gifted learner. And what a gifted adult is, is a gifted doer. And those are quite separate domains of achievement. By Malcolm Gladwell Gifted Learner Child Doer Adult

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? By Malcolm Gladwell Simple Lesson World Allowed Bill

Gottman has found, in fact, that the presence of contempt in a marriage can even predict such things as how many colds a husband or a wife gets; in other words, having someone you love express contempt toward you is so stressful that it begins to affect the functioning of your immune system. By Malcolm Gladwell Contempt Gottman Found Fact Words

Movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Off to the side were dozens of keypunch machines - what passed in those days for computer terminals. By Malcolm Gladwell Movie Odyssey Space Machines Terminals

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Wrong Thinking Innovator Person Kind

The gold box ... was a kind of trigger. It gave viewers a reason to look for the ads in TV Guide and Parade. It created a connection between the Columbia message viewers saw on television and the message they read in a magazine. The gold box ... made the reader / viewer part of an interactive advertising system. Viewers were not just an audience but had become participants. It was like playing a game ... By Malcolm Gladwell Box Trigger Gold Viewers Parade

Stories about suicides resulted in an increase in single-car crashes where the victim was the driver. Stories about suicide-murders resulted in an increase in multiple-car crashes in which the victims included both drivers and passengers. Stories about young people committing suicide resulted in more traffic fatalities involving young people. Stories about older people committing suicide resulted in more traffic fatalities involving older people. These patterns have been demonstrated on many occasions. News coverage of a number of suicides by self-immolation in England in the late 1970's, for example, prompted 82 suicides by self-immolation over the next year. The "permission" given by an initial act of suicide, in other words, isn't a general invitation to the vulnerable. It is really a highly detailed set of instructions, specific to certain people in certain situations who choose to die in certain ways. It's not a gesture. It's speech. By Malcolm Gladwell Stories Resulted People Suicides Suicide

We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction. By Malcolm Gladwell Instruction Learn Direct Experience Real

It's not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether or not our work fulfills us. Being a teacher is meaningful. By Malcolm Gladwell Money Ultimately Happy Make Makes

Over the past decade, the anti-smoking movement has railed against the tobacco companies for making smoking cool and has spent untold millions of dollars of public money trying to convince teenagers that smoking isn't cool. But that's not the point. Smoking was never cool. Smokers are cool. Smoking epidemics begin in precisely the same way that the suicide epidemic in Micronesia began or word-of-mouth epidemics begin or the AIDS epidemic began, because of the extraordinary influence of Pam P. and Billy G. and Maggie and their equivalents-the smoking versions of R. and Tom Gau and Gaetan Dugas. In this epidemic, as in all others, a very small group-a select few-are responsible for driving the epidemic forward. By Malcolm Gladwell Smoking Cool Epidemic Decade Past

I've been in auditions without screens, and I can assure you that I was prejudiced. I began to listen with my eyes, and there is no way that your eyes don't affect your judgement. The only true way to listen is with your ears and your heart. (p.251) By Malcolm Gladwell Screens Prejudiced Auditions Assure Listen

Contagiousness is an unexpected property of all kinds of things. By Malcolm Gladwell Contagiousness Things Unexpected Property Kinds

If you're last in your class at Harvard, it doesn't feel like you're a good student, even though you really are. It's not smart for everyone to want to go to a great school. By Malcolm Gladwell Harvard Student Class Feel Good

There is an important idea in psychology: The 'just world theory,' which says that it is very important for us to convince ourselves that the world is just and things happen for a reason. That there is some elemental fairness in everything, which creates the illusion of justice. By Malcolm Gladwell Important World Psychology Theory Reason

I realize that we are often wary of making these kinds of broad generalizations about different cultural groupsand with good reason. This is the form that racial and ethnic stereotypes take. We want to believe that we are not prisoners of our ethnic histories. But the simple truth is that if you want to understand ... you have to go back to the past ... it matters where you're from, not just in terms of where you grew up or where your parents grew up, but in terms of where you great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents grew up and even where your great-great-grandparents grew up. That is a strange and powerful fact. By Malcolm Gladwell Grew Reason Realize Wary Making

The biggest mistake we make is trying to square the way we feel about something today with the way we felt about it yesterday. You shouldn't even bother doing it. You should just figure out the way you feel today and if it happens to comply with what you thought before, fine. If it contradicts it, whatever. Life goes on. By Malcolm Gladwell Yesterday Biggest Mistake Make Square

But the problem was, Sacks wasn't comparing herself to all the students in the world taking Organic Chemistry. She was comparing herself to her fellow students at Brown. She was a Little Fish in one of the deepest and most competitive ponds in the country - and the experience of comparing herself to all the other brilliant fish shattered her confidence. It made her feel stupid, even By Malcolm Gladwell Sacks Chemistry Organic Comparing Students

Having a parent incarcerated increases a child's chances of juvenile delinquency between 300 and 400 percent; it increases the odds of a serious psychiatric disorder by 250 percent. By Malcolm Gladwell Percent Increases Parent Incarcerated Child

The striking thing about Ericsson's study is that he and his colleagues couldn't find any "naturals," musicians who floated effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time By Malcolm Gladwell Naturals Ericsson Musicians Time Striking

The most intriguing candidate for that "something else" is called the Broken Windows theory. Broken Windows was the brainchild of the criminologist James Q. Wilson and George Kelling. Wilson and Kelling argued that crime is the inevitable result of disorder. If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken, and the sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street on which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes. In a city, relatively minor problems like graffiti, public disorder, and aggressive panhandling, they write, are all the equivalent of broken windows, invitations to more serious crimes: By Malcolm Gladwell Broken Windows Kelling Wilson Theory

A critic looking at these tightly focused, targeted interventions might dismiss them as Band-Aid solutions. But that phrase should not be considered a term of disparagement. The Band-Aid is an inexpensive, convenient, and remarkably versatile solution to an astonishing array of problems. In their history, Band-Aids have probably allowed millions of people to keep working or playing tennis or cooking or walking when they would otherwise have had to stop. The Band-Aid solution is actually the best kind of solution because it involves solving a problem with the minimum amount of effort and time and cost. By Malcolm Gladwell Bandaid Focused Targeted Solution Critic

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Jewish Jews Success Literate Culture

As human beings we are a lot more sophisticated about each other than we are about the abstract world. By Malcolm Gladwell World Human Lot Sophisticated Abstract

Don't get me wrong. I love my mother-in-law. It's her daughter I can't figure out. By Malcolm Gladwell Wrong Love Daughter Figure

There isn't one tight little circle of cheaters and one tight little circle of honest students. Some kids cheat at home but not at school; some kids cheat at school but not at home. Whether or not a child cheated on, say, the word completion test was not an iron-clad predictor of whether he or she would cheat on, say, the underlining A's part of the speed test. If you gave the same group of kids the same test, under the same circumstances six months apart, Hartshorne and May found, the same kids would cheat in the same ways in both cases. But once you changed any of those variables-the material on the test, or the situation in which it was administered-the kinds of cheating would change as well. By Malcolm Gladwell Tight Circle Cheat Kids Test

Anyone who has ever scanned the bookshelves of a new girlfriend or boyfriend- or peeked inside his or her medicine cabinet- understands this implicitly; you can learn as much - or more - from one glance at a private space as you can from hours of exposure to a public face. By Malcolm Gladwell Boyfriend Cabinet Understands Implicitly Face

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Perspective Cool Reads Mine Draws

I've always been baffled by how much we over-rate the statistically insignificant differences that separate competitors at the top end of the distribution. By Malcolm Gladwell Distribution Baffled Overrate Statistically Insignificant

Landowner of those parts. An archway to one side leads to a church, the Madonna del Carmine - Our Lady of Mount Carmine. Narrow stone steps run up the hillside, flanked by closely clustered two-story stone houses with red-tile roofs. For centuries, the paesani of Roseto By Malcolm Gladwell Carmine Landowner Parts Madonna Lady

When the students were asked to identify their race on a pretest questionnaire, that simple act was sufficient to prime them with all the negative stereotypes associated with African Americans and academic achievement - and If a white student from a prestigious private high school gets a higher SAT score than a black student from an inner-city school, is it because she's truly a better student, or is it because to be white and to attend a prestigious high school is to be constantly primed with the idea of "smart"? By Malcolm Gladwell School Student Prestigious High White

Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds. By Malcolm Gladwell Success Function Persistence Doggedness Willingness

The trickster is not a trickster by nature. He is a trickster by necessity. By Malcolm Gladwell Trickster Nature Necessity

To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fischer got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) And what's ten years? Well, it's roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness. By Malcolm Gladwell Years Ten Chess Grandmaster Bobby

The particular skill that allows you to talk your way out of a murder rap, or convince your professor to move you from the morning to the afternoon section, is what the psychologist Robert Sternberg calls "practical intelligence." To Sternberg, practical intelligence includes things like "knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for for maximum effect. By Malcolm Gladwell Sternberg Practical Robert Intelligence Rap

Our world requires that decisions be sourced and footnoted, and if we say how we feel, we must also be prepared to elaborate on why we feel that way ... We need to respect the fact that it is possible to know without knowing why we know and accept that - sometimes - we're better off that way. By Malcolm Gladwell Feel Footnoted World Requires Decisions

We spend a lot of time thinking about the ways that prestige and resources and belonging to elite institutions make us better off. We don't spend enough time thinking about the ways in which those kinds of material advantages limit our options. By Malcolm Gladwell Thinking Time Spend Lot Prestige

The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. By Malcolm Gladwell Trend Tips Idea Threshold Wildfire

The hope with Tipping Point was it would help the reader understand that real change was possible. With Blink, I wanted to get people to take the enormous power of their intuition seriously. My wish with Outliers is that it makes us understand how much of a group project success is. When outliers become outliers it is not just because of their own efforts. It's because of the contributions of lots of different people and lots of different circumstances. By Malcolm Gladwell Tipping Point Outliers Hope Reader

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Place World Immovable Implacable Push

Mavens are data banks. They provide the message. Connectors are social glue: they spread it. But there is also a select group of people-Salesmen-with the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing, and they are as critical to the tipping of word-of-mouth epidemics as the other two groups. By Malcolm Gladwell Mavens Banks Data Message Provide

But this same dilemma comes up again and again in our own lives, and often we don't choose so wisely. The inverted-U curve reminds us that there is a point at which money and resources stop making our lives better and start making them worse. By Malcolm Gladwell Wisely Lives Dilemma Choose Making

Forgiveness is a religious imperative: forgive those who trespass against you. But it is also a very practical strategy based on the belief that there are profound limits to what the formal mechanisms of retribution can accomplish. By Malcolm Gladwell Forgiveness Imperative Forgive Religious Trespass

Gifted children and child prodigies seem most likely to emerge in highly supportive family conditions.In contrast, geniuses have a perverse tendency of growing up in more adverse conditions. By Malcolm Gladwell Gifted Contrast Geniuses Conditions Children

Radio stations have constructed a narrow door[way], and that's because they don't understand how complex and paradoxical our snap judgments are. It's hard to measure new songs. By Malcolm Gladwell Radio Door Stations Constructed Narrow

There is a concept in cognitive psychology called the channel capacity, which refers to the amount of space in our brain for certain kinds of information. By Malcolm Gladwell Capacity Information Concept Cognitive Psychology

Whenever we have something that we are good atsomething we care aboutthat experience and passion fundamentally change the nature of our first impressions. By Malcolm Gladwell Impressions Good Atsomething Care Aboutthat

Situation is. The flight engineer points to the empty fuel gauge, and makes a throat-cutting gesture with his finger.* But he says nothing. Nor does anyone else for the next five minutes. There's radio chatter and routine business, and then the flight engineer cries By Malcolm Gladwell Situation Flight Engineer Gauge Finger

All three of the great waves of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century European immigrants to America innovated. By Malcolm Gladwell European America Nineteenth Innovated Great

paesani of Roseto worked in the marble quarries in the surrounding hills, or cultivated the fields in the terraced valley below, walking four and five miles down By Malcolm Gladwell Roseto Paesani Hills Walking Worked

Consider, for example, the following puzzle. I give you a large piece of paper, and I ask you to fold it over once, and then take that folded paper and fold it over again, and then again, and again, until you have refolded the original paper 50 times. How tall do you think the final stack is going to be? In answer to that question, most people will fold the sheet in their mind's eye, and guess that the pile would be as thick as a phone book or, if they're really courageous, they'll say that it would be as tall as a refrigerator. But the real answer is that the height of the stack would approximate the distance to the sun. And if you folded it over one more time, the stack would be as high as the distance to the sun and back. By Malcolm Gladwell Paper Fold Stack Puzzle Tall

As it may be - matters. How you feel about your abilities - your academic "self-concept" - in the context of your classroom shapes your willingness to tackle challenges and finish difficult tasks. It's a crucial element in your motivation and confidence. By Malcolm Gladwell Matters Selfconcept Abilities Academic Tasks

The iPod is clearly a tipping point (and I'm not quite sure it is a wholly positive development), because it is a revolution in the way that we consume creative property, which I would call art. It has radically changed the relationship between the artist and the audience, how money changes hands, and how much money changes hands. Music was the first, and books are coming next. The Kindle or some form of electronic book is clearly inevitable, and it will massively reshape how books are sold, who pays for them, and how they're consumed. It is going to be really fascinating. By Malcolm Gladwell Hands Point Development Property Art

The most advanced computer science programs in the world, and over the course of the Computer Center's life, thousands of students passed By Malcolm Gladwell Computer Center World Life Thousands

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Mavens Starting Area Connectors Resources

My highest compliment is when someone comes up to me to say, "My 14-year-old daughter, or my 12-year-old son read your book and loved it." I cannot conceive of a greater compliment than that - to write something that as an adult I find satisfying, but also that manages to reach a curious 13- or 14-year-old. By Malcolm Gladwell Daughter Son Compliment Highest Read

practical intelligence." To Sternberg, practical intelligence includes things like "knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect." It is procedural: it is about knowing how to do something without necessarily knowing why you know it or being able to explain it. By Malcolm Gladwell Practical Knowing Intelligence Sternberg Effect

Our unconscious reactions come out of a locked room, and we can't look inside that room. but with experience we become expert at using our behavior and our training to interpret - and decode - what lies behind our snap judgment and first impressions. By Malcolm Gladwell Room Unconscious Reactions Locked Inside

I am a story-teller, and I look to academic research ... for ways of augmenting story-telling. By Malcolm Gladwell Storyteller Research Academic Storytelling Augmenting

We overlook just how large a role we all playand by 'we' I mean societyin determining who makes it and who doesn't. By Malcolm Gladwell Overlook Large Role Playand Societyin

You don't train someone for all of those years of medical school and residency, particularly people who want to help others optimize their physical and psychological health, and then have them run a claims-processing operation for insurance companies. By Malcolm Gladwell Residency Health Companies Train Years

The first person who throws the rock is a lot more radical than a hundredth person.By the time the riot has attracted a hundred people, you don't have to be nearly as much of a daredevil or a hothead or committed or any of those things to want to engage in a riot. By Malcolm Gladwell Riot People Person Throws Rock

The ethics of plagiarism have turned into the narcissism of small differences: because journalism cannot own up to its heavily derivative nature, it must enforce originality on the level of the sentence. By Malcolm Gladwell Differences Nature Sentence Ethics Plagiarism

Basketball is an intricate, high-speed game filled with split-second, spontaneous decisions. But that spontaneity is possible only when everyone first engages in hours of highly repetitive and structured practiceperfecting their shooting, dribbling, and passing and running plays over and over againand agrees to play a carefully defined role on the court ... spontaneity isn't random. By Malcolm Gladwell Basketball Intricate Highspeed Splitsecond Spontaneous

Horchow's daughter, Sally, told me a story of how she once took her father to a new Japanese restaurant where a friend of hers was a chef. Horchow liked the food, and so when he went home he turned on his computer, pulled up the names of acquaintances who lived nearby, and faxed them notes telling them of a wonderful new restaurant he had discovered and that they should try it. This is, in a nutshell, what word of mouth is. It's not me telling you about a new restaurant with great food, and you telling a friend and that friend telling a friend. Word of mouth begins when somewhere along that chain, someone tells a person like Roger Horchow. By Malcolm Gladwell Sally Japanese Horchow Friend Restaurant

Did they know why they knew? Not at all. But the Knew! By Malcolm Gladwell Knew

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 expressing emotions and feelings,which means that we are far more emotionally contagious than the rest of us. Psychologists call these people "senders." Senders have special personalities. They are also physiologically different. Scientists who have studied faces, for example, report that there are huge differences among people in the location of facial muscles, in their form, and also-surprisingly-even in their prevalence. "It is a situation not unlike in medicine," says Cacioppo. "There are carriers, people who are very expressive, and there are people who are especially susceptible. It's not that emotional contagion is a disease. But the mechanism is the same. By Malcolm Gladwell People Outsidein Wayas Understand Enormous

Telling teenagers about the health risks of smoking - It will make you wrinkled! It will make you impotent! It will make you dead! - is useless," Harris concludes. "This is adult propaganda; these are adult arguments. It is because adults don't approve of smoking - because there is something dangerous and disreputable about it - that teenagers want to do it. By Malcolm Gladwell Make Telling Wrinkled Smoking Health

The principle elements of a puzzle all require the application of energy and persistence, which are the virtues of youth. Mysteries demand experience and insight. By Malcolm Gladwell Persistence Youth Principle Elements Puzzle

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Epstein Gene Sports David Memory

Through embracing the diversity of humans beings, we will find a sure way to true happiness. By Malcolm Gladwell Happiness Embracing Diversity Humans Find

In order to get one of the greatest inventions of the modern age, in other words, we thought we needed the solitary genius. But if Alexander Graham Bell had fallen into the Grand River and drowned that day back in Brantford, the world would still have had the telephone, the only difference being that the telephone company would have been nicknamed Ma Gray, not Ma Bell. By Malcolm Gladwell Bell Age Words Genius Order

In recent years, for example, there has been much interest in the idea that one of the most fundamental factors in explaining personality is birth order: older siblings are domineering and conservative, younger siblings more creative and rebellious. When psychologists actually try to verify this claim, however, their answers sound like the Hartshorne and May conclusions. We do reflect the influences of birth order but, as the psychologist Judith Harris points out in The Nurture Assumption, only around our families. When they are away from their families - in different contexts - older siblings are no more likely to be domineering and younger siblings no more likely to be rebellious than anyone else. The birth order myth is an example of the FAE in action. By Malcolm Gladwell Siblings Birth Order Older Years

Our intuitions, as humans, aren't always very good. Changes that happen really suddenly, on the strength of the most minor of input, can be deeply confusing. By Malcolm Gladwell Intuitions Humans Good Suddenly Input

When I go to my health club, and it's in the basement, you have to take the elevator down. And this drives me crazy. Why can't there be a stairway? At least make it as easy to exercise as it is to not exercise. It's in society's interest for me to take the stairs. By Malcolm Gladwell Club Basement Health Elevator Exercise

I don't really collect books. I tend to lose interest in them the minute I've read them, so most of the books I've read are left in airplanes and hotel rooms. By Malcolm Gladwell Books Collect Read Rooms Tend

From experience, we gain a powerful gift, the ability to act instinctively, in the moment. By Malcolm Gladwell Experience Gift Instinctively Moment Gain

That is the paradox of the epidemic: that in order to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first. By Malcolm Gladwell Create Epidemic Paradox Order Contagious

Farkas's Jewish family trees go on for pages, each virtually identical to the one before, until the conclusion becomes inescapable: Jewish doctors and lawyers did not become professionals in spite of their humble origins. They became professionals because of their humble origins. By Malcolm Gladwell Jewish Origins Humble Farkas Pages

[Chris Langan] told me not long ago. "I found if I go to bed with a question on my mind, all I have to do is concentrate on the question before I go to sleep and I virtually always have the answer in the morning. Sometimes I realize what the answer is because I dreamt the answer and I can remember it. Other times I just feel the answer, and I start typing and the answer emerges onto the page. By Malcolm Gladwell Answer Chris Langan Told Ago

Our acquaintances - not our friends - are our greatest source of new ideas and information. the internet lets us exploit the power of these kinds of distant connections with marvellous efficiency. By Malcolm Gladwell Acquaintances Friends Information Greatest Source

[O]ur attitudes towards things like race or gender operate on two levels. First of all, we have our conscious attitudes. This is what we choose to believe. These are our stated values, which we use to direct our behavior deliberately . . . But the IAT [Implicit Association Test] measures something else. It measures our second level of attitude, our racial attitude on an unconscious level - the immediate, automatic associations that tumble out before we've even had time to think. We don't deliberately choose our unconscious attitudes. And . . . we may not even be aware of them. The giant computer that is our unconscious silently crunches all the data it can from the experiences we've had, the people we've met, the lessons we've learned, the books we've read, the movies we've seen, and so on, and it forms an opinion. By Malcolm Gladwell Attitudes Unconscious Things Race Gender

If you go to an elite school where the other students in your class are all really brilliant, you run the risk of mistakenly believing yourself to not be a good student. By Malcolm Gladwell Brilliant Elite School Class Run

If you think about the world of a preschooler, they are surrounded by stuff they don't understand-things that are novel. So the driving force for a preschooler is not a search for novelty, like it is with older kids, it's a search for understanding and predictability," says Anderson. "For younger kids, repetition is really valuable. They demand it. When they see a show over and over again, the not only are understanding it better, which is a form of power, but just by predicting what is going to happen, I think they feel a real sense of affirmation and self-worth. And Blue's Clues doubles that feeling, because they also feel like they are participating in something. They feel like they are helping Steve. By Malcolm Gladwell Preschooler Search Feel Kids World

For younger kids, repetition is really valuable. They demand it. When they see a show over and over again, they not only are understanding it better, which is a form of power, but just by predicting what is going to happen, I think they feel a real sense of affirmation and self-worth. By Malcolm Gladwell Kids Repetition Valuable Younger Demand

People are ruined by challenged economic lives. But they are ruined by wealth as well because they lose their ambition and they lose their pride and they lose their sense of self-worth By Malcolm Gladwell Lose Ruined People Lives Challenged

From medieval tapestries, we know that slingers were capable of hitting birds in flight. They were incredibly accurate. By Malcolm Gladwell Tapestries Flight Medieval Slingers Capable

If you're skinny and you can't play hockey in Canada, you aren't left with a lot of options. I was left with running. By Malcolm Gladwell Canada Options Left Skinny Play

Instinct is the gift of experience. The first question you have to ask yourself is, 'On what basis am I making a judgment?' ... If you have no experience, then your instincts aren't any good. By Malcolm Gladwell Experience Gift Judgment Question Basis

If you want to bring a fundamental change in people's belief and behavior ... you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs can be practiced and expressed and nurtured. By Malcolm Gladwell Behavior Bring Fundamental Change People

Successful people don't do it alone. Where they come from matters. They're products of particular places and environments. By Malcolm Gladwell Successful People Matters Environments Products

Concerted cultivation. He gets taken to museums and gets enrolled in special programs and goes to summer camp, where he takes classes. When he's bored at home, there are plenty of books to read, and his parents see it as their responsibility to keep him actively engaged in the world around him. It's not hard to see how Alex would get better at reading and math over the summer. By Malcolm Gladwell Concerted Cultivation Summer Camp Classes

Six degrees of separation doesn't mean that everyone is linked to everyone else in just six steps. It means that a very small number of people are linked to everyone else in a few steps, and the rest of us are linked to the world through those special few. By Malcolm Gladwell Linked Steps Degrees Separation Small

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Theories Write Books Challenge Feelings

A runner needs not just to be skinny but - more specifically - to have skinny calves and ankles, because every extra pound carried on your extremities costs more than a pound carried on your torso. That's why shaving even a few ounces off a pair of running shoes can have a significant effect. By Malcolm Gladwell Carried Pound Skinny Specifically Ankles

We cling to the idea that success is a simple function of individual merit and that the world in which we all grow up and the rules we choose to write as a society don't matter at all. By Malcolm Gladwell Cling Idea Success Simple Function

We used to say poor people had lousy genes. Then we decided that wasn't OK, but we transferred the prejudice to upbringing. We said, 'You were neglected as a child, so you'll never make it.' That's just as pernicious. By Malcolm Gladwell Genes Poor People Lousy Upbringing

Extreme visual clarity, tunnel vision, diminished sound, and the sense that time is slowing down. this is how the human body reacts to extreme stress. By Malcolm Gladwell Clarity Tunnel Vision Diminished Sound

You think it matters to the kids whether they're learning to play on a Steinway or a normal piano? By Malcolm Gladwell Steinway Piano Matters Kids Learning

Any fool can spend money. But to earn it and save it and defer gratification - then you learn to value it differently. By Malcolm Gladwell Money Fool Spend Gratification Differently

I wrote my first book when I was in my late thirties. By Malcolm Gladwell Thirties Wrote Book Late

Do you remember the wrestler Andre the Giant? Famous. He had acromegaly. By Malcolm Gladwell Giant Andre Famous Remember Wrestler

They spent their first night in America sleeping on the floor of a tavern on Mulberry Street, in Manhattan's Little Italy. Then they ventured west, eventually finding jobs in a slate quarry ninety miles west of the city near the town of Bangor, Pennsylvania. The following year, fifteen Rosetans left Italy By Malcolm Gladwell Street America Mulberry Manhattan Italy

Though she isn't stupid at all. "Wow, other people are mastering this, even people who were as clueless as I was in the beginning, and I just can't seem to learn to think in this manner." 5. Caroline Sacks was experiencing what is called "relative deprivation," a term coined by the sociologist Samuel Stouffer during the Second World War. Stouffer was commissioned by the U.S. Army to examine the attitudes and morale of American soldiers, and he ended up studying half a million men and women, looking at everything from how soldiers viewed their commanding officers to how black soldiers felt they were being treated to how difficult soldiers found it to serve in isolated outposts. But one set of questions Stouffer asked stood out. He quizzed both By Malcolm Gladwell Stouffer Soldiers Wow Stupid People

The first is that much of what we consider valuable in our world arises out of these kinds of lopsided conflicts, because the act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty. And second, that we consistently get these kinds of conflicts wrong. By Malcolm Gladwell Kinds Beauty Conflicts Valuable World

Much of what we consider valuable in our world arises out of (these) one-sided conflicts. Because the act of facing overwhelming odds, produces greatness and beauty. By Malcolm Gladwell Onesided Conflicts Valuable World Arises

If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken, and the sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street on which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes. By Malcolm Gladwell Unrepaired People Charge Broken Left

When crime drops dramatically in New York for no apparent reason, or when a movie made on a shoestring budget ends up making hundreds of millions of dollars - we're surprised. I'm saying, don't be surprised. This is the way social epidemics work. By Malcolm Gladwell York Surprised Reason Dollars Crime

People who are busy doing things - as opposed to people who are busy sitting around, like me, reading and having coffee in coffee shops -don't have opportunities to kind of collect and organize their experiences and make sense of them. By Malcolm Gladwell People Busy Coffee Things Reading

If you plug in the neocortex ratio for Homo sapiens, you get a group estimate of 147.8-or roughly 150. "The figure 150 seems to represent the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship, the kind of relationship that goes with knowing who they are and how they relate to us. By Malcolm Gladwell Roughly Homo Sapiens Plug Neocortex

Education lays the foundation of a large portion of the causes of mental disorder By Malcolm Gladwell Education Disorder Lays Foundation Large

It would be a mistake, however, to think that Connectors are the only people who matter in a social epidemic. Roger Horchow sent out a dozen faxes promoting his daughter's friend's new restaurant. But he didn't discover that restaurant. Someone else did and told him about it. At some point in the rise of Hush Puppies, the shoes were discovered by Connectors, who broadcast the return of Hush Puppies far and wide. but who told the Connectors about Hush Puppies? It's possible that Connectors learn about new information by an entirely random process, that because they know so many people they get access to new things wherever they pop up. If you look closely at social epidemics, however, it becomes clear that just as there are people we rely upon to connect us to other people, there are also people we rely upon to connect us with new information. There are people specialists, and there are information specialists. By Malcolm Gladwell Connectors Hush People Puppies Mistake

The most common form of giantism is a condition called acromegaly, and acromegaly is caused by a benign tumor on your pituitary gland that causes an overproduction of human growth hormone. And throughout history, many of the most famous giants have all had acromegaly. By Malcolm Gladwell Hormone Acromegaly Common Form Giantism

Truly successful decision-making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking. By Malcolm Gladwell Thinking Successful Decisionmaking Relies Balance

All good parents understand these three principles implicitly. If you want to stop little Johnnie from hitting his sister, you can't look away one time and scream at him another. You can't treat his sister differently when she hits him. And if he says he really didn't hit his sister, you have to give him a chance to explain himself. How you punish is as important as the act of punishing itself. By Malcolm Gladwell Sister Implicitly Good Parents Understand

If anyone wants to start an epidemic, then-whether it is of shoes or behavior or a piece of software-he or she has to somehow employ Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen in this very way: he or she has to find some person or some means to translate the message of the Innovators into something the rest of us can understand. By Malcolm Gladwell Mavens Connectors Salesmen Innovators Epidemic

When people are overwhelmed with information and develop immunity to traditional forms of communication, they turn instead for advice and information to the people in their lives whom they respect, admire, and trust. The cure for immunity is finding Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen. By Malcolm Gladwell Admire People Information Communication Respect

Once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That's it. And what's more, the people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder. By Malcolm Gladwell School Harder Musician Ability Music

My father will sit down and give you theories to explain why he does this or that," the son of the billionaire investor George Soros has said. "But I remember seeing it as a kid, and thinking, At least half of this is bull. I mean, you know the reason he changes his position on the market or whatever is because his back starts killing him. He literally goes into a spasm, and it's this early warning sign. By Malcolm Gladwell George Soros Father Sit Give

If I have sinned so much, if I have been since then so solitary, if my soul has taken such a swirling and solitary movement, if I have doubted everyting, if I have been fatalist and have been a pessimistic child who awaits death every day and who almost seeks it out, if I have opened myself slowly and late to happiness, and if I am still a somber man incapable of laughing wholeheartedly it is because you left me ... By Malcolm Gladwell Solitary Movement Everyting Happiness Sinned

There is a set of advantages that have to do with material resources, and there is a set that have to do with the absence of material resources- and the reason underdogs win as often as they do is that the latter is sometimes every bit the equal of the former. By Malcolm Gladwell Resources Set Material Advantages Absence

The entire principle of a blind taste test was ridiculous. They shouldn't have cared so much that they were losing blind taste tests with old Coke, and we shouldn't at all be surprised that Pepsi's dominance in blind taste tests never translated to much in the real world. Why not? Because in the real world, no one ever drinks Coca-Cola blind. By Malcolm Gladwell Taste Blind Tests World Ridiculous

A study at the University of Utah found that if you ask someone why he is friendly with someone else, he'll say it is because he and his friend share similar attitudes. But if you actually quiz the two of them on their attitudes, you'll find out that what they actually share is similar activities. We're friends with the people we do things with, as much as we are with the people we resemble. We don't seek out friends, in other words. We associate with the people who occupy the same small, physical spaces that we do. By Malcolm Gladwell University Utah Attitudes People Share

How do you teach "work hard, be independent, learn the meaning of money" to children who look around themselves and realize that they never have to work hard, be independent, or learn the meaning of money? That's why so many cultures around the world have a proverb to describe the difficulty of raising children in an atmosphere of wealth. In English, the saying is "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations." The Italians say, "Dalle stelle alle stalle" ("from stars to stables"). In Spain it's "Quien no lo tiene, lo hance; y quien no lo tiene, lo deshance" ("he who doesn't have it, does it, and he who has it, misuses it"). Wealth contains the seeds of its own destruction. By Malcolm Gladwell Hard Independent Money Meaning Work

Testers for 7-Up consistently found consumers would report more lemon flavor in their product if they added 15% more yellow coloring TO THE PACKAGE. By Malcolm Gladwell Package Testers Consistently Added Found

In 52 percent of crashes, the pilot at the time of the accident has been awake for twelve hours or more, meaning that he is tired and not thinking sharply. By Malcolm Gladwell Percent Crashes Meaning Sharply Pilot

So why don't Americans cheat? Because they think that their system is legitimate. People accept authority when they see that it treats everyone equally, when it is possible to speak up and be heard, and when there are rules in place that assure you that tomorrow you won't be treated radically different from how you are treated today. Legitimacy is based on fairness, voice and predictability, and the U.S. government, as much as Americans like to grumble about it, does a pretty good job of meeting all three standards. Pg. 293 By Malcolm Gladwell Cheat Americans Treated Legitimate Government

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. By Malcolm Gladwell People Years Met Spent Twenty

What are we seeing here? One very real possibility is that these are the educational consequences of the differences in parenting styles that we talked about in the Chris Langan chapter. Think back to Alex Williams, the nine-year-old whom Annette Lareau studied. By Malcolm Gladwell Chris Langan Williams Alex Annette

The notion that the only way you can critically engage with a person's ideas is to take a shot at them, is to be openly critical - this is actually nonsense. Some of the most effective ways in which you deal with someone's idea are to treat them completely at face value, and with an enormous amount of respect. That's actually a faster way to engage with what they're getting at than to lob grenades in their direction ... If you're going to hold someone to what they believe, make sure you accurately represent what they believe. By Malcolm Gladwell Critical Nonsense Engage Notion Critically

We tell rags-to-riches stories because we find something captivating in the idea of a lone hero battling overwhelming odds. By Malcolm Gladwell Stories Odds Find Captivating Idea

Our notion that it is the best and the brightest who effortlessly rise to the top is much too simplistic. By Malcolm Gladwell Simplistic Notion Brightest Effortlessly Rise

The Law of the Few, ... says that one critical factor in epidemics is the nature of the messenger. By Malcolm Gladwell Law Messenger Critical Factor Epidemics

The "culture of honor" hypothesis says that it matters where you're from, not just in terms of where you grew up or where your parents grew up, but in terms of where your great-grandparents and great-great-great-grandparents grew up. That is a strange and powerful fact. It's just the beginning, though, because upon closer examination, cultural legacies turn out to be even stranger and more powerful than that. By Malcolm Gladwell Grew Terms Culture Honor Hypothesis

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Children Haste Waste Makes Leap

I found if I go to bed with a question on my mind, all I have to do is concentrate on the question before I go to sleep and I virtually always have the answer in the morning. By Malcolm Gladwell Question Mind Morning Found Bed

It is easier and far more satisfying to retreat and compose yourself after every score - and execute perfectly choreographed plays - than to swarm about, arms flailing, and contest every inch of the basketball court. Underdog strategies By Malcolm Gladwell Score Plays Arms Flailing Court

I'm just trying to say that it should reassure us that the inevitable traumas of being human do end up producing some good. Otherwise, the human condition is overwhelmingly depressing. By Malcolm Gladwell Good Human Reassure Inevitable Traumas

Broken Windows theory and the Power of Context are one and the same. They are both based on the premise that an epidemic can be reversed, can be tipped, by tinkering with the smallest details of the immediate environment. This By Malcolm Gladwell Windows Power Context Broken Theory

The scholars who research happiness suggest that more money stops making people happier at a family income of around seventy-five thousand dollars a year. After that, what economists call "diminishing marginal returns" sets in. If your family makes seventy-five thousand and your neighbor makes a hundred thousand, that extra twenty-five thousand a year means that your neighbor can drive a nicer car and go out to eat slightly more often. But it doesn't make your neighbor happier than you, or better equipped to do the thousands of small and large things that make for being a good parent. By Malcolm Gladwell Thousand Neighbor Seventyfive Year Scholars

Without the New York Times, there is no blog community. They'd have nothing to blog about. By Malcolm Gladwell Times York Community Blog

We all want to believe that the key to making an impact on someone lies with the inherent quality of the ideas we present. But in none of these cases did anyone substantially alter the content of what they were saying. Instead, they tipped the message by tinkering, on the margin, with the presentation of their ideas, ... By Malcolm Gladwell Present Key Making Impact Lies

Israeli minister of defense Moshe Dayan - the architect of Israel's astonishing victory in the 1967 Six-Day War - also wrote an essay on the story of David and Goliath. According to Dayan, David fought Goliath not with inferior but (on the contrary) with superior weaponry; and his greatness consisted not in his being willing to go out into battle against someone far stronger than he was. But in his knowing how to exploit a weapon by which a feeble person could seize the advantage and become stronger. By Malcolm Gladwell Dayan War Moshe Israel David

I have a new way of doing things, and I don't care if you think I'm crazy. By Malcolm Gladwell Things Crazy Care

I worry that track is going to enter into an impossibly complicated stage, where our understanding of the complexities of human physiology - and our ability to accentuate and exploit them - is going to make the notion of pure competition impossible. By Malcolm Gladwell Stage Physiology Impossible Worry Track

Our first impressions are generated by our experiences and our environment, which means that we can change our first impressions ... by changing the experiences that comprise those impressions. By Malcolm Gladwell Impressions Experiences Environment Generated Change

There are moments, particularly in times of stress, when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions can offer a much better means of making sense of the world. By Malcolm Gladwell Moments Stress Waste World Times

I never had any great desire to be well-known or to sell a lot of books. ... Maybe that's paradoxically one of the reasons why I've done well. People sense that I'm doing things out of pure enjoyment. I'm not pandering to an audience or following a formula. I'm just writing about cool stuff that interests me, and people respond to that. By Malcolm Gladwell Books Great Desire Wellknown Sell

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. By Malcolm Gladwell God People Read Motivation Insight

To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages today that determine successthe fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of historywith a society that provides opportunities for all. By Malcolm Gladwell Build World Replace Patchwork Lucky

A book, I was taught long ago in English class, is a living and breathing document that grows richer with each new reading. By Malcolm Gladwell English Book Class Reading Taught

The introduction to the 1 vs. 100 episode pointed out that Einstein had an IQ of 150 and Langan has an IQ of 195. Langan's IQ is 30 percent higher than Einstein's. But that doesn't mean Langan is 30 percent smarter than Einstein. That's ridiculous. All we can say is that when it comes to thinking about really hard things like physics, By Malcolm Gladwell Einstein Langan Episode Percent Introduction

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Ben Fountain Arbitrary Fortynine Success

The term used by linguists to describe what Klotz was engaging in in that moment is "mitigated speech," which refers to any attempt to downplay or sugarcoat the meaning of what is being said. We mitigate when we're being polite, or when we're ashamed or embarrassed, or when we're being deferential to authority. If you want your boss to do you a favor, you don't say, "I'll need this by By Malcolm Gladwell Klotz Mitigated Speech Term Linguists

any attempt to downplay or sugarcoat the meaning of what is being said. We mitigate when we're being polite, or when we're ashamed or embarrassed, or when we're being deferential to authority. If you want your boss to do you a favor, you By Malcolm Gladwell Attempt Downplay Sugarcoat Meaning Polite

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Cdc Centers Control Disease People

In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours. By Malcolm Gladwell Fact Researchers Expertise Ten Hours

Because the people and countries who are wealthy enough to pay for things like really small classes have a hard time understanding that the things their wealth can buy might not always make them better off. By Malcolm Gladwell Things People Countries Wealthy Pay

Man evolved to feel strongly about few people, short distances, and relatively brief intervals of time; and these are still the dimensions of life that are important to him. By Malcolm Gladwell Man People Short Distances Time

University of Hawaii Press, 1983; The Happiest Man: The Life of Louis Borgenicht (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1942). Used by permission of Lindy Friedman Sobel and Alice Friedman Holzman. The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher. ISBN 978-0-316-04034-1 E3 By Malcolm Gladwell Press Man Borgenicht York Sons

You need to have the ability to gracefully navigate the world. By Malcolm Gladwell World Ability Gracefully Navigate

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Crisis Attention Marketing Community Approaching

Those with health insurance are overinsured and their behavior is distorted by moral hazard. Those without health insurance use their own money to make decisions based on an assessment of their needs. The insured are wasteful. The uninsured are prudent. So what's the solution? Make the insured a little more like the uninsured. By Malcolm Gladwell Health Insurance Hazard Overinsured Behavior

There is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, and that's worth more to most of us than money. By Malcolm Gladwell Autonomy Complexity Work Money Relationship

An innate gift and a certain amount of intelligence are important, but what really pays is ordinary experience. By Malcolm Gladwell Important Experience Innate Gift Amount

Biologists often talk about the "ecology" of an organism: the tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardiest acorn; it is the tallest also because no other trees blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no rabbit chewed through its bark as a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down before it matured. By Malcolm Gladwell Tallest Ecology Biologists Organism Acorn

The tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardiest acorn; it is the tallest also because no other trees blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no rabbit chewed through its bark as a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down before it matured. We By Malcolm Gladwell Tallest Acorn Sunlight Rich Sapling

The Rule of 150 says that congregants of a rapidly expanding church, or the members of a social club, or anyone in a group activity banking on the epidemic spread of shared ideals needs to be particularly cognizant of the perils of the bigness. Crossing the 150 line is a small change that can make a big difference. By Malcolm Gladwell Rule Church Club Bigness Congregants

The Power of the Glance Thin-slicing is not an exotic gift. It is a central part of what it means to be human. We thin-slice whenever we meet a new person or have to make sense of something quickly or encounter a novel situation. We thin-slice because we have to, and we come to rely on that ability because there are lots of hidden fists out there, lots of situations where careful attention to the details of a very thin slice, even for no more than a second or two, can tell us an awful lot. By Malcolm Gladwell Power Glance Thinslicing Gift Exotic

My father read Charles Dickens to us as children, and at the end of virtually every novel he would choke up and start to cry - and my father NEVER cried. It always made me love him all the more. By Malcolm Gladwell Father Charles Dickens Children Cry

People assume when my hair is long that I am a lot cooler than I actually am. I am not opposed to this misconception, by the way, but it is a misconception. By Malcolm Gladwell People Misconception Assume Hair Long

What is learned out of necessity is inevitably more powerful than the learning that comes easily. By Malcolm Gladwell Easily Learned Necessity Inevitably Powerful

In cross-country skiing, athletes propel themselves over distances of ten and twenty miles - a physical challenge that places intense demands on the ability of their red blood cells to deliver oxygen to their muscles. By Malcolm Gladwell Skiing Athletes Miles Muscles Crosscountry

He was maxed out. He had noresources left to do anything else. That's what happenswhen you're tired. Your decision-making skills erode. Youstart missing things - things that you would pick up onany other day. By Malcolm Gladwell Maxed Things Tired Noresources Left

In winter, the lazy man freezes to death. By Malcolm Gladwell Winter Death Lazy Man Freezes

Some of us, after all, are very good at expressing emotions and feelings, which means that we are far more emotionally contagious than the rest of us. Psychologists call these people "senders. By Malcolm Gladwell Feelings Senders Good Expressing Emotions

To appreciate the power of epidemics, we have to abandon this expectation about proportionality. We need to prepare ourselves for the possibility that sometimes big changes follow from small events, and that sometimes these changes can happen very quickly. By Malcolm Gladwell Epidemics Proportionality Power Abandon Expectation

Four Horsemen: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt. Even within the Four Horsemen, in fact, there is one emotion that he considers the most important of all: contempt. If Gottman observes one or both partners in a marriage showing contempt toward the other, he considers it the single most important sign that the marriage is in trouble. By Malcolm Gladwell Horsemen Defensiveness Stonewalling Criticism Contempt

What track needs to figure out: how to engage us between the races. Instead, the entire off-the-track conversation is about doping. This is how you kill a sport. By Malcolm Gladwell Races Track Figure Engage Entire

The sad thing about doping is how much it obscures our appreciation of greatness. By Malcolm Gladwell Greatness Sad Thing Doping Obscures

Minor, seemingly insignificant quality-of-life crimes, they said, were Tipping Points for violent crime. By Malcolm Gladwell Minor Tipping Points Seemingly Insignificant

miles down the mountain in the morning and then making the long journey back up the hill at night. Life was hard. The townsfolk were barely literate and desperately poor and without much hope for economic betterment until word reached Roseto at the end By Malcolm Gladwell Miles Night Mountain Morning Making

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Success Place Deeply Rooted Time

Emotion goes inside-out. Emotional contagion, though, suggests that the opposite is also true. If I can make you smile, I can make you happy. If I can make you frown, I can make you sad. Emotion, in this sense, goes outside-in. By Malcolm Gladwell Make Insideout Emotion Emotional Contagion

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. By Malcolm Gladwell American Japanese Kids Problem Stopwatch

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Difficult World Law Powerful Phrase

A fan is always an outsider. Most sportswriters are not, by this definition, fans. They capitalize on access to athletes. They spoke to Kobe last night, and Kobe says his finger is going to be fine. They spent three days fly-fishing with Brett Favre in March, and Brett says he's definitely coming back for another season. By Malcolm Gladwell Outsider Kobe Brett March Definition

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Day Risk Persistence Stubbornness Hard

Fundamental to our analysis is the assumption that the population, as individuals or groups, behaves "rationally," that it calculates costs and benefits to the extent that they can be related to different courses of action, and makes choices accordingly. ... Consequently, influencing popular behavior requires neither sympathy nor mysticism, but rather a better understanding of what costs and benefits the individual or the group is concerned with, and how they are calculated. By Malcolm Gladwell Behaves Rationally Fundamental Population Action

The great accomplishment of Jobs's life is how effectively he put his idiosyncrasies - his petulance, his narcissism, and his rudeness - in the service of perfection. By Malcolm Gladwell Jobs Idiosyncrasies Petulance Narcissism Rudeness

Of the seventy-five names, an astonishing fourteen are Americans born within nine years of one another in the mid-nineteenth century. Think about that for a moment. Historians start with Cleopatra and the By Malcolm Gladwell Americans Century Seventyfive Astonishing Fourteen

If we want groups to serve as incubators for contagious messages, then ... we have to keep groups below the 150 Tipping Point. Above that point, there begin to be structural impediments to the ability of the group to agree and act with one voice. By Malcolm Gladwell Point Messages Groups Serve Incubators

The goal of storytelling should be to make stories as ubiquitous as music. By Malcolm Gladwell Music Goal Storytelling Make Stories

Giants are not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear to give them strength are often the sources of great weakness. By Malcolm Gladwell Giants Weakness Qualities Give Strength

The willingness to be self-critical in England is much greater than the willingness to be self-critical in America. By Malcolm Gladwell America Willingness Selfcritical England Greater

We have given teens more money, so they can construct their own social and material worlds more easily. We have given them more time to spend among themselves - and less time in the company of adults. We have given them e-mail and beepers and, most of all, cellular phones, so that they can fill in all the dead spots in their day - dead spots that might once have been filled with the voices of adults - with the voices of their peers. That is a world ruled by the logic of word of mouth, by the contagious messages that teens pass among themselves. Columbine is now the most prominent epidemic of isolation among teenagers. It will not be the last. By Malcolm Gladwell Adults Money Easily Construct Social

If there is one thing I learned by reading Epstein's "The Sports Gene" it is that world-class athletes are, by definition, abnormal: that is, the kind of person capable of competing at that level is necessarily very different from the rest of us physiologically. They are outliers. By Malcolm Gladwell Epstein Gene Abnormal Sports Definition

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Open Things Innovators Preconceptions Imagine

My rule is that if I interview someone, they should never read what I have to say about them and regret having given me the interview. By Malcolm Gladwell Interview Rule Read Regret

Consistency is the most overrated of all human virtues ... I'm someone who changes his mind all the time. By Malcolm Gladwell Consistency Virtues Overrated Human Time

Most psychologists believe that nature - genetics - accounts for about half of the reason why we tend to act the way we do. His point is simply that there are certain times and places and conditions when much of that can be swept away, that there are instances where you can take normal people from good schools and happy families and good neighborhoods and powerfully affect their behavior merely by changing the immediate details of their situation. This By Malcolm Gladwell Genetics Nature Accounts Psychologists Half

You don't want to be first, right? You want to be second or third. You don't want to be - Facebook is not the first in social media. They're the third, right? Similarly, you know, if you look at Steve Jobs' history, he's never been first. By Malcolm Gladwell Facebook Steve Jobs Similarly Media

People don't rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. 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. By Malcolm Gladwell Rise People Patronage Owe Parentage

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. By Malcolm Gladwell People Stand Kings Fact Invariably

All the outliers we've looked at so far were the beneficiaries of some kind of unusual opportunity. Lucky breaks don't seem like the exception with software billionaires and rock bands and star athletes. They seem like the rule. By Malcolm Gladwell Opportunity Outliers Looked Beneficiaries Kind

Write down as many different uses that you can think of for the following objects: a brick a blanket This is an example of what's called a divergence test By Malcolm Gladwell Write Objects Test Brick Blanket

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Community Society Matters Trite Sounds

In Steiger's case, of course, his high connectedness is a function of his versatility as an actor and, in all likelihood, some degree of good luck. But in the case of Connectors, their ability to span many different worlds is a function of something intrinsic to their personality, some combination of curiosity, self-confidence, sociability, and energy. By Malcolm Gladwell Steiger Function Likelihood Luck Case

four different operators in that unit, working on a shift system, each with his own characteristics," says Nigel West, a British military historian. "And invariably, quite apart from the text, there would be the preambles, and the illicit exchanges. How are you today? How's the girlfriend? What's the weather By Malcolm Gladwell West Nigel British Unit Working

For every remote miss who becomes stronger, there are countless near misses who are crushed by what they have been through. There are times and places, however, when all of us depend on people who have been hardened by their experiences. By Malcolm Gladwell Stronger Remote Miss Countless Misses

The best example of how impossible it will be for Major League Baseball to crack down on steroids is the fact that baseball and the media are still talking about the problem as 'steroids.' By Malcolm Gladwell Baseball Major League Steroids Impossible

As human beings, we always expect everyday change to happen slowly and steadily, and for there to be some relationship between cause and effect. By Malcolm Gladwell Steadily Effect Human Expect Everyday

He waits for the kid to decide whether to pull the gun up or simply to drop it - and all the while, even as he tracks the progress of the gun, he is also watching the kid's face, to see whether he is dangerous or simply frightened. is there a more beautiful example of a snap judgment? this is the gift of training and expertise - the ability to extract an enormous amount of meaningful information from the very thinnest slice of experience. By Malcolm Gladwell Kid Gun Simply Face Judgment

I have never read any Tolstoy. I felt badly about this until I read a Bill Simmons column where he confessed that he'd never seen 'The Big Lebowski.' Simmons, it should be pointed out, has seen everything. He said that everyone needs to have skipped at least one great cultural touchstone. By Malcolm Gladwell Tolstoy Read Simmons Lebowski Bill

If everyone has to think outside the box, maybe it is the box that needs fixing. By Malcolm Gladwell Box Fixing

In epidemics, the messenger matters: messengers are what make something spread. But the content of the message matters too. And the specific quality that a message needs to be successful is the quality of stickiness. By Malcolm Gladwell Epidemics Spread Matters Make Messenger

A Connector might tell ten friends where to stay in Los Angeles, and half of them might take his advice. A Maven might tell five people where to stay in Los Angeles but make the case for the hotel so emphatically that all of them would take his advice. These are different personalities at work, acting for different reasons. But they both have the power to spark word-of-mouth epidemics. By Malcolm Gladwell Los Angeles Advice Connector Stay

I don't want a door bell. I don't want anyone ringing my door bell ... seems to be intrusive. They can call me on their cell phones. By Malcolm Gladwell Bell Door Intrusive Ringing Phones

The Mennonites have Dirk Willems, who was arrested for his religious beliefs in the sixteenth century and held in a prison tower. With the aid of a rope made of knotted rags, he let himself down from the window and escaped across the castle's ice-covered moat. A guard gave chase. Willems made it safely to the other side. The guard did not, falling through the ice into the freezing water, and Willems stopped, went back, and pulled his pursuer to safety. For his act of compassion, he was taken back to prison, tortured, and then burned slowly at the stake as he repeated "Oh, my Lord, my God" seventy times over.8 By Malcolm Gladwell Mennonites Dirk Willems Tower Arrested

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Imagery Consciousness Thought Affect Brilliant

For every romantic possiblity, no matter how robust, there exists at least one equal and opposite sentence, phrase, or word capable of extinguishing it. By Malcolm Gladwell Phrase Possiblity Robust Sentence Romantic

Sometimes constraints actually create success. Not being able to swim made me run. And running taught me the discipline I needed as a writer. By Malcolm Gladwell Success Constraints Create Run Writer

The three rules of the Tipping Point - the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, the Power of Context - offer a way of making sense of epidemics. They provide us with direction for how to go about reaching a Tipping Point. By Malcolm Gladwell Point Factor Context Tipping Law

Louis and Regina found a tiny apartment on Eldridge Street, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, for $8 a month. Louis then took to the streets, looking for work. He saw peddlers and fruit sellers and sidewalks crammed with pushcarts. The noise and activity and energy dwarfed what he had known in the Old World. He was first overwhelmed, then invigorated. He went By Malcolm Gladwell Side Regina Eldridge Manhattan Lower

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. That's what Schoenfeld attempts to teach his students. Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds. Put a bunch of Renees in a classroom, and give them the space and time to explore mathematics for themselves, By Malcolm Gladwell Schoenfeld Mathematics Innate Ability Give

Courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you've been through the tough times and you discover they aren't so tough after all. By Malcolm Gladwell Courage Tough Times Start Makes

We have, I think, a very rigid and limited definition of what an advantage is. We think of things as helpful that actually aren't and think of other things as unhelpful that in reality leave us stronger and wiser. By Malcolm Gladwell Rigid Limited Definition Advantage Things

The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and re-imagines the world. By Malcolm Gladwell Paper World Visionary Starts Clean

When people from organizations like the World Bank descended on Third World countries, they always tried to remove obstacles to development, to reduce economic anxiety and uncertainty. By Malcolm Gladwell World Bank Countries Development Uncertainty

Each of us has his or her own distinct personality. But overlaid on top of that are tendencies and assumptions and reflexes handed down to us by the history of the community we grew up in, and those differences are extraordinarily specific. By Malcolm Gladwell Personality Distinct Specific Overlaid Top

We tend to credit those who create an idea, not those who perfect it, forgetting that it is often only in the perfection of an idea that true progress occurs. Putting sixty-four transistors on a chip allowed people to dream of the future. Putting four million transistors on a chip actually gave them the future. By Malcolm Gladwell Idea Future Forgetting Occurs Putting

They have a national policy where they have no ability grouping until the age of ten. Denmark waits to make selection decisions until maturity differences by age have evened out. By Malcolm Gladwell Ten Age National Policy Ability

It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success. It's the rich who get the biggest tax breaks. It's the best students who get the best teaching and most attention. And it's the biggest nine- and ten-year-olds who get the most coaching and practice. Success is the result of what sociologists like to call accumulative advantage. By Malcolm Gladwell Successful Words Kinds Special Opportunities

Just as Tom Gau could, through the persuasive force of his personality, serve as a Tipping Point in a word-of-mouth epidemic, the people who die in highly publicized suicides-whose deaths give others "permission" to die-serve as the Tipping Points in suicide epidemics. By Malcolm Gladwell Tipping Permission Point Points Tom

Acquaintances, in sort, represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are. By Malcolm Gladwell Sort Represent Power Acquaintances Source

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Character Stable Easily Traits Organized

The name given to that one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once is the Tipping Point. By Malcolm Gladwell Point Tipping Dramatic Moment Epidemic

My social circle is, in reality, not a circle. It is a pyramid. And at the top of the pyramid is a single person - Jacob - who is responsible for an overwhelming majority of the relationships that constitute my life. By Malcolm Gladwell Circle Reality Social Jacob Pyramid

There is more courage and heroism in defying the human impulse, in taking the purposeful and painful steps to prepare for the unimaginable. By Malcolm Gladwell Impulse Unimaginable Courage Heroism Defying

We tell ourselves that skill is the precious resource and effort is the commodity. It's the other way around. Effort can trump ability-relentl ess effort is in fact something rarer than the ability to engage in some finely tuned act of motor coordination. By Malcolm Gladwell Effort Commodity Skill Precious Resource

We have, in short, somehow become convinced that we need to tackle the whole problem, all at once. But the truth is that we don't. We only need to find the stickiness Tipping Points, By Malcolm Gladwell Short Problem Convinced Tackle Points

In the Big Pond chapter, I talked about the fact that being on the outside, in a less elite and less privileged environment, can give you more freedom to pursue your own ideas and academic interests. By Malcolm Gladwell Big Pond Chapter Environment Interests

What the Israelites saw, from high on the ridge, was an intimidating giant. In reality, the very thing that gave the giant his size was also the source of his greatest weakness. There is an important lesson in that for battles with all kinds of giants. The powerful and the strong are not always what they seem. By Malcolm Gladwell Israelites Ridge Giant High Intimidating

We need to accept our ignorance and say 'I don't know' more often. By Malcolm Gladwell Accept Ignorance

A Maven is someone who wants to solve other people's problems, generally by solving his own," Alpert said, which is true, although what I suspect is that the opposite is also true, that a Maven is someone who solves his own problems - his own emotional needs - by solving other people's problems. By Malcolm Gladwell Problems Maven People True Alpert

We live in a world that assumes that the quality of a decision is directly related to the time and effort that went into making it ... We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible an depending as much time as possible in deliberation. We really only trust conscious decision making. But there are moments, particularly in times of stress, when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions can offer a much better means of making sense of the world. The first task of Blink is to convince you of a simple fact: decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately. By Malcolm Gladwell Making Live Assumes Quality Directly

Students who attend what they considered to be their first-choice school were less likely to persist in a biomedical or behavioral science major, they write. You think you want to go to the fanciest school you can. You don't. By Malcolm Gladwell Students Major Write School Attend

Rod Steiger is the best connected actor in history because he has managed to move up and down and back and forth among all the different worlds and subcultures and niches and levels that the acting profession has to offer.This is what Connectors are like. They are the Rod Steigers of everyday life. They are people whom all of us can reach in only a few steps because, for one reason or another, they manage to occupy many different worlds and subcultures and niches. By Malcolm Gladwell Connectors Rod Worlds Subcultures Steiger

Kids don't watch when they are stimulated and look away when they are bored. They watch when they understand and look away when they are confused. If you are in the business of educational television, this is a critical difference. It means if you want to know whether-and what-kids are learning from a TV show, all you have to do is to notice what they are watching. And if you want to know what kids aren't learning, all you have to do is notice what they aren't watching. Preschoolers are so sophisticated in their viewing behavior that you can determine the stickiness of children's programming by simple observation. By Malcolm Gladwell Watch Bored Stimulated Watching Kids

The fact of being an underdog changes people in ways that we often fail to appreciate. It opens doors and creates opportunities and enlightens and permits things that might otherwise have seemed unthinkable. By Malcolm Gladwell Fact Underdog People Fail Unthinkable

The lesson of the Impressionists is that there are times and places where it is better to be a Big Fish in a Little Pond than a Little Fish in a Big Pond, where the apparent disadvantage of being an outsider in a marginal world turns out not to be a disadvantage at all. By Malcolm Gladwell Big Fish Pond Impressionists Disadvantage

In cognitively demanding fields, there are no naturals. Nobody walks into an operating room straight out of a surgical rotation and does world-class neurosurgery. By Malcolm Gladwell Fields Naturals Cognitively Demanding Neurosurgery

But we need to remember that our definition of what is right is, as often as not, simply the way that people in positions of privilege close the door on those on the outside. By Malcolm Gladwell Simply Remember Definition People Positions

Why are man hole covers around? If you don't knwo the answer to the questions, you're not smart enough to work at microsoft By Malcolm Gladwell Man Hole Covers Questions Microsoft

No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich. By Malcolm Gladwell Rich Rise Dawn Hundred Sixty

It is the new and different that is always most vulnerable to market research. By Malcolm Gladwell Research Vulnerable Market

I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success don't work. People don't rise from nothing ... It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't. By Malcolm Gladwell Work Convince Kinds Personal Explanations

I should point out that I have a picture of Asbel Kiprop as the screensaver on my phone. Is that embarrassing? By Malcolm Gladwell Asbel Kiprop Phone Point Picture

Human Rights Watch: Nationwide, the rate of drug admissions to state prison for black men is thirteen times greater than the rate for white men. In ten states black men are sent to state prison on drug charges at rates that are 26 to 57 times greater than those of white men in the same state. In Illinois, for example, the state with the highest rate of black male drug offender admissions to prison, a black man is 57 times more likely to be sent to prison on drug charges than a white man. By Malcolm Gladwell Nationwide Watch Prison Men Drug

The sense of possibility so necessary for success comes not just from inside us or from our parents. It comes from our time: from the particular opportunities that our place in history presents us with. By Malcolm Gladwell Parents Sense Possibility Success Inside

I interviewed one of the most powerful lawyers in the world and he told me, "At the time, it was the worst thing in the world not to be able to get a job at a fancy law firm, but it's the greatest thing that ever happened in my life." It was a humble acknowledgment of how forces much larger than himself shaped his career. I really wanted to bring that point home. By Malcolm Gladwell World Thing Time Firm Life

Humans socialize in the largest groups of all primates because we are the only animals with brains large enough to handle the complexities of that social arrangement. By Malcolm Gladwell Humans Arrangement Socialize Largest Groups

If you think advantage lies in resources, then you think the best educational system is the one that spends the most money. By Malcolm Gladwell Resources Money Advantage Lies Educational

Those born in the last quarter of the year might as well give up on hockey too. By Malcolm Gladwell Born Quarter Year Give Hockey

Gosh darn it," Gau said, "if you don't try, you'll never succeed." 10. By Malcolm Gladwell Gau Gosh Succeed Darn

Good writing does not fail or succeed on the strength of its ability to persuade. Not the kind of writing that you'll find in this book, anyway. 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 someone else's head is not a place you'd really like to be.from intro to What The Dog Saw By Malcolm Gladwell Strength Ability Good Persuade Writing

The school year in the United States is, on average, 180 days long. The South Korean school year is 220 days long. The Japanese school year is 243 days long. By Malcolm Gladwell Days Long United States Year

Extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make By Malcolm Gladwell Extraordinary Make Opportunities Cultural Legacies

[Norden] said, with the Mark 15 Norden bombsight, he could drop a bomb into a pickle barrel at 20,000 feet. By Malcolm Gladwell Norden Feet Mark Bombsight Drop

Activism that challenges the status quo, that attacks deeply rooted problems, is not for the faint of heart. By Malcolm Gladwell Activism Quo Problems Heart Challenges

Wolf and Bruhn had to convince the medical establishment to think about health and heart attacks in an entirely new way: they had to get them to realize that they wouldn't be able to understand why someone was By Malcolm Gladwell Bruhn Wolf Convince Medical Establishment

Once you understand that Goliath is much weaker than you think he is, and David has superior technology, then you say: why do we tell the story the way we do? It becomes, actually, a far more meaningful and important story in its retelling than in the kind of unsophisticated way we've done it for, I think, too long. By Malcolm Gladwell Goliath David Technology Story Understand

Some people look like they sound better than they actually sound, because they look confident and have good posture," once musician, a veteran of many auditions, says. "Other people look awful when they play but sound great. Other people have that belabored look when they play, but you can't hear it in the sound. There is always this dissonance between what you see and hear" (p.251). By Malcolm Gladwell People Sound Posture Musician Auditions

If Harvard is $60,000 and University of Toronto, where I went to school, is maybe six. So you're really telling me that education is 10 times better at Harvard than it is at University of Toronto? That seems ridiculous to me. By Malcolm Gladwell Toronto University Harvard School Times

In a devastating critique, the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin once showed that if Terman had simply put together a randomly selected group of children from the same kinds of family backgrounds as the Termites - and By Malcolm Gladwell Termites Pitirim Sorokin Terman Critique

I recently talked to an eighteen-year-old - a huge FIFA fan - and realized that he spends more time playing the FIFA video game than he does watching actual FIFA games. By Malcolm Gladwell Fifa Fan Recently Talked Huge

With his trademark counterintuitive logic how the habits of highly successful people pale in By Malcolm Gladwell Trademark Counterintuitive Logic Habits Highly

Western communication has what linguists call a "transmitter orientation"that is, it is considered the responsibility of the speaker to communicate ideas clearly and unambiguously ... within a Western cultural context, which holds that if there is confusion, it is the fault of the speaker. But Korea, like many Asian countries, is receiver oriented. It is up to the listener to make sense of what is being said. By Malcolm Gladwell Western Speaker Transmitter Orientation Unambiguously

Success is not a function of individual talent. It's the steady accumulation of advantages. It's bound up in so many other broader circumstantial, environmental, historical, and cultural factors. By Malcolm Gladwell Success Talent Function Individual Environmental

Gottman has proven something remarkable. If he analyzes an hour of a husband and wife talking, he can predict with 95 percent accuracy whether that couple will still be married fifteen years later. If he watches a couple for fifteen minutes, his success rate is around 90 percent. By Malcolm Gladwell Gottman Remarkable Percent Proven Couple

It wasn't an excuse. It was a fact. He'd had to make his way alone, and no one - not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses - ever makes it alone. By Malcolm Gladwell Excuse Fact Stars Athletes Billionaires

The Band-Aid is an inexpensive, convenient, and remarkably versatile solution to an astonishing array of problems. By Malcolm Gladwell Convenient Inexpensive Problems Bandaid Remarkably

The paradox of endurance sports is that an athlete can never work as hard as he wants, because if he pushes himself too far, his hematocrit will fall. By Malcolm Gladwell Fall Paradox Endurance Sports Athlete

Hard work is only a prison sentence when you lack motivation By Malcolm Gladwell Hard Motivation Work Prison Sentence

To play by David's rules you have to be desperate. You have to be so bad that you have no choice. By Malcolm Gladwell David Desperate Play Rules Choice

A vervet, in other words, is very good at processing certain kinds of vervetish information, but not so good at processing other kinds of information. By Malcolm Gladwell Information Good Processing Kinds Vervet

Historians start with Cleopatra and the pharaohs and comb through every year in human history ever since, looking in every corner of the world for evidence of extraordinary wealth, and almost 20 percent of the names they end up with come from a single generation in a single country. By Malcolm Gladwell Single Cleopatra Historians Wealth Percent

I suspect people who are indecisive are people who are far too enamored of analysis in all settings and are destroying their ability to make an instinctive judgment through over-analysisand that's dangerous. By Malcolm Gladwell People Dangerous Suspect Indecisive Enamored

I always resist seeing my own personal motivation in my work, but I guess it must be there on some level. And I do feel very much that my life follows the kinds of things I talk about in my books. I've always thought of myself as an insanely lucky person, so perhaps the success of my first two books led me to want to examine this phenomenon on some unconscious level. By Malcolm Gladwell Work Level Resist Personal Motivation

I am like a decapitated pine. Pine trees do not regenerate their tops. They stay twisted, crippled.They grow in thickness, perhaps, and that is what I am doing. By Malcolm Gladwell Pine Decapitated Tops Twisted Crippledthey

A radical and transformative thought goes nowhere without the willingness to challenge convention. By Malcolm Gladwell Convention Radical Transformative Thought Willingness

You don't start at the top if you want to find the story. You start in the middle, because it's the people in the middle who do the actual work in the world. By Malcolm Gladwell Story Start Top Find Middle

Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities. By Malcolm Gladwell Success Act Random Opportunities Arises

Often a sign of expertise is noticing what doesn't happen. By Malcolm Gladwell Happen Sign Expertise Noticing

My earliest memories of my father are of seeing him work at his desk and realizing that he was happy. I did not know it then, but that was one of the most precious gifts a father can give his child. By Malcolm Gladwell Happy Father Earliest Memories Work

The values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are. By Malcolm Gladwell World Inhabit People Surround Profound

An aggressive drug-testing program would cut down on certain abuses, but its never going to catch everyone - or even close to everyone. By Malcolm Gladwell Abuses Aggressive Drugtesting Program Cut

When you're an underdog, you're forced to try things you would never otherwise have attempted. By Malcolm Gladwell Underdog Attempted Forced Things

He was an underdog and a misfit, and that gave him the freedom to try things no one else even dreamt of. By Malcolm Gladwell Misfit Underdog Gave Freedom Things

I mean, it's ridiculous," Dhuey says. "It's outlandish that our arbitrary choice of cutoff dates is causing these long-lasting effects, and no one seems to care about them. By Malcolm Gladwell Dhuey Ridiculous Effects Outlandish Arbitrary

It is useful to compare the Branch Davidians with the Mormons of the mid-nineteenth century. The Mormons were vilified in those years in large part because Joseph Smith believed in polygamy. By Malcolm Gladwell Mormons Branch Davidians Century Compare

If we are to learn to improve the quality of the decisions we make, we need to accept the mysterious nature of our snap judgments. By Malcolm Gladwell Make Judgments Learn Improve Quality

Snap judgments are, first of all, enormously quick: they rely on the thinnest slices of experience. But they are also unconscious. By Malcolm Gladwell Snap Enormously Quick Experience Judgments

An incredibly high percentage of successful entrepreneurs are dyslexic. That's one of the little-known facts. By Malcolm Gladwell Dyslexic Incredibly High Percentage Successful

They believed that it was a mistake to separate product development from marketing, as most of their contemporaries did, because to them the two were indistinguishable: the object that sold best was the one that sold itself. By Malcolm Gladwell Sold Marketing Indistinguishable Believed Mistake

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. By Malcolm Gladwell Instincts Fundamentally Undermines Ability Access

In teaching, the implications are even more profound. They suggest that we shouldn't be raising standards. We should be lowering them, because there is no point in raising standards if standards don't track with what we care about. Teaching should be open to anyone with a pulse and a college degree - and teachers should be judged after they have started their jobs, not before. By Malcolm Gladwell Profound Standards Implications Raising Teaching

Roseto Valfortore lies one hundred miles southeast of Rome in the Apennine foothills By Malcolm Gladwell Valfortore Rome Apennine Roseto Foothills

People are in one of two states in a relationship," Gottman went on. "The first is what I call positive sentiment override, where positive emotion overrides irritability. It's like a buffer. Their spouse will do something bad, and they'll say, 'Oh, he's just in a crummy mood.' Or they can be in negative sentiment override, so that even a relatively neutral thing that a partner says gets perceived as negative. By Malcolm Gladwell Gottman People Relationship States Positive

A handicap is like trying to race and you have a ten pound weight stuck to your waist. That is a handicap. By Malcolm Gladwell Waist Handicap Race Ten Pound

Many people with dyslexia truly suffer, and their lives are worse off for having had that disability. By Malcolm Gladwell Suffer Disability People Dyslexia Lives

[ ... ] the sense of entitlement [ ... ] is an attitude perfectly suited to succeeding in the modern world By Malcolm Gladwell Entitlement World Sense Attitude Perfectly

In the six degrees of separation, not all degrees are equal. By Malcolm Gladwell Separation Equal Degrees

Because there is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, By Malcolm Gladwell Autonomy Complexity Work Relationship Effort

In my mid-adolescence, my friend Terry Martin and I became obsessed with William F. Buckley. This makes more sense when you realize that we were living in Bible Belt farming country miles from civilization. Buckley seemed impossibly exotic. By Malcolm Gladwell Terry Martin William Midadolescence Buckley

Greenberg wanted to give his pilots an alternate identity. Their problem was that they were trapped in roles dictated by the heavy weight of their country's cultural legacy. They needed an opportunity to step outside those roles ... and language was the key to that transformation. By Malcolm Gladwell Greenberg Identity Wanted Give Pilots

I grew up in southwestern Ontario in the heart of a Mennonite community. All my family are part of the Mennonite church. By Malcolm Gladwell Ontario Mennonite Community Grew Southwestern

Incompetence is certainty in the absence of expertise. Overconfidence is certainty in the presence of expertise. By Malcolm Gladwell Expertise Certainty Incompetence Absence Overconfidence

Imagine that you are a doctor and you suddenly learn that you'll see twenty patients on a Friday afternoon instead of twenty-five, while getting paid the same. Would you respond by spending more time with each patient? Or would you simply leave at six-thirty instead of seven-thirty and have dinner with your kids? By Malcolm Gladwell Friday Imagine Twentyfive Doctor Suddenly

The Four Horsemen: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt. By Malcolm Gladwell Defensiveness Stonewalling Criticism Horsemen Contempt

Capitalization learning: we get good at something by building on the strengths that we are naturally given. By Malcolm Gladwell Capitalization Learning Good Building Strengths

I'm necessarily parasitic in a way. I have done well as a parasite. But I'm still a parasite. By Malcolm Gladwell Parasite Necessarily Parasitic

Parents with a child born at the end of the calendar year often think about holding their child back before the start of kindergarten: it's hard for a five-year-old to keep up with a child born many months earlier. But most parents, one suspects, think that whatever disadvantage a younger child faces in kindergarten eventually goes away. But it doesn't. It's just like hockey. The small initial advantage that the child born in the early part of the year has over the child born at the end of the year persists. By Malcolm Gladwell Child Born Year Parents Kindergarten

rep" squad - the all-star By Malcolm Gladwell Rep Squad Allstar

David and Goliath is a book about what happens when ordinary people confront giants. By Malcolm Gladwell Goliath David Giants Book Ordinary

That term, 'David and Goliath,' has entered our language as a metaphor for improbable victories by some weak party over someone far stronger. By Malcolm Gladwell David Goliath Term Stronger Entered

If we want to, say, develop schools in disadvantaged communities that can successfully counteract the poisonous atmosphere of their surrounding neighborhoods, this tells us that we're probably better off building lots of little schools than one or two big ones. By Malcolm Gladwell Develop Neighborhoods Schools Disadvantaged Communities

Father: 'Anything but journalism.' I rebelled. By Malcolm Gladwell Father Journalism Rebelled

Are in perceptions of the taste and quality of the By Malcolm Gladwell Perceptions Taste Quality

But sometimes genius is anything but rarefied; sometimes it's just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen. (p313) By Malcolm Gladwell Rarefied Kitchen Genius Thing Emerges

learn better skills; and the next year, because they are in the higher groups, they do even better; and the next year, the same thing happens, and they do even better again. The only country we don't see this going on is Denmark. They have a national policy where they have no ability grouping until the age of By Malcolm Gladwell Year Learn Skills Groups Higher

We are all of us not merely liable to fear, we are also prone to be afraid of being afraid, and the conquering of fear produces exhilaration. ... The contrast between the previous apprehension and the present relief and feeling of security promotes a self-confidence that is the very father and mother of courage. By Malcolm Gladwell Fear Afraid Exhilaration Liable Prone

The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert - in anything, writes the neurologist Daniel Levitin. By Malcolm Gladwell Levitin Daniel Expert Writes Emerging

If you think about the class-size puzzle this way, then what seems baffling starts to make a little more sense. By Malcolm Gladwell Sense Classsize Puzzle Baffling Starts

One of the most important tools in contemporary educational research is value added analysis. By Malcolm Gladwell Analysis Important Tools Contemporary Educational

Performance ought to improve with experience, and pressure is an obstacle that the diligent can overcome. By Malcolm Gladwell Performance Experience Overcome Improve Pressure

There is a place for hyperbole and I believe it's the back jacket of books By Malcolm Gladwell Books Place Hyperbole Back Jacket

A social epidemic, Mavens are data banks. They provide the message. Connectors are social glue: they spread it. But there is also a select group of people - Salesmen - with the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing, and they are as critical to the tipping of word-of-mouth epidemics as the other two groups. Who By Malcolm Gladwell Mavens Banks Data Social Salesmen

The point about Connectors is that by having a foot in so many different worlds, they have the effect of bringing them all together. By Malcolm Gladwell Connectors Worlds Point Foot Effect

Why is the fact that each of us comes from a culture with its own distinctive mix of strengths and weaknesses, tendencies and predispositions, so difficult to acknowledge? Who we are cannot be separated from where we're from - and when we ignore that fact, planes crash. By Malcolm Gladwell Weaknesses Tendencies Predispositions Acknowledge Fact

They lacked something that could have been given to them if we'd only known they needed it: a community around them that prepared them properly for the world. By Malcolm Gladwell World Lacked Needed Community Prepared

They were poor and living in the farthest corners of the Bronx. How did they afford tickets? "Mary got a quarter," Friedman says. "There was a Mary who was a ticket taker, and if you gave Mary a quarter, she would let you stand in the second balcony, without a ticket." ... and what you learn in that world is that through your own powers of persuasion and initiative, you can take your kids to Carnegie Hall. There is no better lesson for a budding lawyer than that. The garment industry was boot camp for the professionals. By Malcolm Gladwell Bronx Mary Quarter Poor Living

Do we as a society need people who have emerged from some kind of trauma. And the answer is that we plainly do. There are times and places however when all of us depend on people who have been hardened by their experiences ... [Dr. Freireich] understood from his own childhood experiences that it is possible to emerge from even the darkest hell healed and restored. By Malcolm Gladwell