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Incompetence is certainty in the absence of expertise. Overconfidence is certainty in the presence of expertise.

Malcolm Gladwell

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Malcolm Gladwell
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: September 3
Journalist
Screenwriter
Sociologist
Writer
Malcolm Timothy Gladwell
Incompetence
Expertise
Certainty
Absence
Presence

More quotes by Malcolm Gladwell

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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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I would say first of all, anyone who wants to challenge the status quo always gets that response. Ninety percent of the time, that's just bull. That's just the way in which people choose to prop up their own privilege or their own particular position. So mostly I shrug it off.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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Sometimes [genius] is just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.
Malcolm Gladwell
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My writing model is my mother, who is a writer as well. She always valued clarity and simplicity above all else. If someone doesn't understand what you're writing, then everything else you do is superfluous. Irrelevant. If any thoughtful, curious reader finds what I do impenetrable, I've failed.
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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When we become expert in something, our tastes grow more esoteric and complex.
Malcolm Gladwell
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The difference isn't resources, it's attitude.
Malcolm Gladwell
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There is this tremendous body of knowledge in the world of academia where extraordinary numbers of incredibly thoughtful people have taken the time to examine on a really profound level the way we live our lives and who we are and where we've been. That brilliant learning sometimes gets trapped in academia and never sees the light of day.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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
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The injunction to be nice is used to deflect criticism and stifle the legitimate anger of dissent.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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There are lots of issues more important than where billionaires donate their money.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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If you don't contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you're not thinking.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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Sometimes constraints actually create success. Not being able to swim made me run. And running taught me the discipline I needed as a writer.
Malcolm Gladwell
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You need to have the ability to gracefully navigate the world.
Malcolm Gladwell