Malcolm Gladwell Quotes

99 Sourced Quotes

Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.

Malcolm Gladwell
The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world.

Malcolm Gladwell
The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of teamwork and communication.

Malcolm Gladwell
What does it say about a society that it devotes more care and patience to the selection of those who handle its money than of those who handle its children?

Malcolm Gladwell
I've always been drawn to those who are exceptional or weird in some way... and the book is about people whose achievement exceeds every expectation. What surprised me most were the ordinary methods successful people use to achieve all they achieve.

Malcolm Gladwell
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.

Malcolm Gladwell
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.

Malcolm Gladwell
The face is not a secondary billboard for our internal feelings. It is an equal partner in the emotional process.

Malcolm Gladwell
The act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty.

Malcolm Gladwell
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.

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

Malcolm Gladwell
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.

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

Malcolm Gladwell
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.

Malcolm Gladwell
If you make a great number of predictions, the ones that were wrong will soon be forgotten, and the ones that turn out to be true will make you famous.

Malcolm Gladwell
If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires.

Malcolm Gladwell
Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.

Malcolm Gladwell
In the act of tearing something apart, you lose its meaning.

Malcolm Gladwell
We are not helpless in the face of our first impressions. They may bubble up from the unconscious - from behind a locked door inside of our brain - but just because something is outside of awareness doesn't mean it's outside of control.

Malcolm Gladwell
There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis.

Malcolm Gladwell
There are exceptional people out there who are capable of starting epidemics. All you have to do is find them.

Malcolm Gladwell
The values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are.

Malcolm Gladwell
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.

Malcolm Gladwell
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.

Malcolm Gladwell
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.

Malcolm Gladwell
We overlook just how large a role we all play — and by 'we' I mean society — in determining who makes it and who doesn't.

Malcolm Gladwell
Success has to do with deliberate practice. Practice must be focused, determined, and in an environment where there's feedback.

Malcolm Gladwell
Courage is what you earn when you've been through the tough times and you discover they aren't so tough after all,

Malcolm Gladwell
There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible.

Malcolm Gladwell
The poorer children were, to her mind, often better behaved, less whiny, more creative in making use of their own time, and have a well-developed sense of independence.

Malcolm Gladwell