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I'm a lot more interested in people than I used to be. I used to be most interested in abstract ideas, and people were an afterthought, but that's changed a bit.
Malcolm Gladwell -
If you take away the gift of reading, you create the gift of listening.
Malcolm Gladwell
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There will be statues of Bill Gates across the Third World. There's a reasonable shot that - because of his money - we will cure malaria.
Malcolm Gladwell -
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.
Malcolm Gladwell -
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.
Malcolm Gladwell -
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.
Malcolm Gladwell -
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.
Malcolm Gladwell -
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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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Of the great entrepreneurs of this era, people will have forgotten Steve Jobs.
Malcolm Gladwell -
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.
Malcolm Gladwell -
Does that mean we should give up? Probably. But there are two issues worth considering. The first is - is it really true that drugs destroy the integrity of the game?
Malcolm Gladwell -
If you're smarter than me, you shouldn't be reading my books.
Malcolm Gladwell -
People in great institutions are occasionally credulous.
Malcolm Gladwell -
My books have contradictions all the time - and people are fine with that.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell -
All my books are optimistic!
Malcolm Gladwell -
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.
Malcolm Gladwell -
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.
Malcolm Gladwell -
We don't know where our first impressions come from or precisely what they mean, so we don't always appreciate their fragility.
Malcolm Gladwell -
An incredibly high percentage of successful entrepreneurs are dyslexic. That's one of the little-known facts.
Malcolm Gladwell
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I remember as a kid watching one of the Olympic games, and I was cheering for a big track athlete. He was the favorite to win, and he lost. I realized in that moment the pain he felt was so much greater than the pain that those who never thought they were going to win would have felt had they lost.
Malcolm Gladwell -
From medieval tapestries, we know that slingers were capable of hitting birds in flight. They were incredibly accurate.
Malcolm Gladwell -
Take the great example of the four-minute mile. One guy breaks it, then all of a sudden everyone breaks it. And they break it in such a short period of time that it can't be because they were training harder. It's purely that it was a psychological barrier, and someone had to show them that they could do it.
Malcolm Gladwell -
For some small number of people, a parental loss appears to be, ultimately, a desirable difficulty - again, not a large number.
Malcolm Gladwell