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Incompetence annoys me. Overconfidence terrifies me.

Malcolm Gladwell

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Malcolm Gladwell
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: September 3
Journalist
Screenwriter
Sociologist
Writer
Malcolm Timothy Gladwell
Annoying
Terrifies
Annoys
Incompetence

More quotes by Malcolm Gladwell

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The religious paradigm and the science fiction paradigm are different. Apologies to science fiction fans, but the paradigm there is to create a new world and describe it with a kind of specificity that we describe the world we inhabit. Religiosity, on the other hand, does none of that.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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The goal of storytelling should be to make stories as ubiquitous as music.
Malcolm Gladwell
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It takes ten thousand hours to truly master anything. Time spent leads to experience experience leads to proficiency and the more proficient you are the more valuable you'll be.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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What happens when two people talk? That is really the basic question here, because, that's the basic context in which all persuasion takes place.
Malcolm Gladwell
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Innovation-the heart of the knowledge economy-is fundamentally social.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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The people at the top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.
Malcolm Gladwell
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When we become expert in something, our tastes grow more esoteric and complex.
Malcolm Gladwell
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All artists have to do that at a certain point. This shift that has to happen between the initial moment of creation and then the consideration of what has been created.
Malcolm Gladwell
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If we think about emotion this way - as outside-in, not inside out - it is possible to understand how some people can have an enormous amount of influence over others. Some of us, after all, are very good at expressiing emotions and feelings, which means that we are far more emotionally contagious than the rest of us.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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Activism that challenges the status quo, that attacks deeply rooted problems, is not for the faint of heart.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail.
Malcolm Gladwell
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Whenever we have something that we are good at--something we care about--that experience and passion fundamentally change the nature of our first impressions.
Malcolm Gladwell
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To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fisher 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.
Malcolm Gladwell