"We have the kind of self-made-man myth, which says that super-successful people did it themselves."
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Quote collection
Malcolm Gladwell quotes (page 4 of 16)
304 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Who we are cannot be separated from where we're from."
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"Innovation-the heart of the knowledge economy-is fundamentally social."
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"A lot of what is most beautiful about the world arises from struggle."
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"That is the paradox of the epidemic: that in order to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first."
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"Through embracing the diversity of humans beings, we will find a sure way to true happiness."
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"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."
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"Truly successful decision-making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking."
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"To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages today that determine success--the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history--with a society that provides opportunities for all."
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"There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis."
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"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."
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"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."
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"Emotion is contagious."
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"Nobody accomplishes success by themselves."
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"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."
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"Achievement is talent plus preparation. The problem with this view is that the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play."
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"There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it."
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"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."
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"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."
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"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. 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”?"
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