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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
Certainty
Absence
Presence
Incompetence
Expertise

More quotes by Malcolm Gladwell

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The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.
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Asian culture has a profoundly different relationship to work. It rewards people who are persistent.
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A radical and transformative thought goes nowhere without the willingness to challenge convention.
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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.
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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?
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If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken, and the sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street on which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes.
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There are lots of issues more important than where billionaires donate their money.
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When you're an underdog, you're forced to try things you would never otherwise have attempted.
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So long as the stereotype is used as a way of understanding how to fix the problem as opposed to demonizing a people or writing them off, then I think it's OK.
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The injunction to be nice is used to deflect criticism and stifle the legitimate anger of dissent.
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Acquaintances represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.
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The goal of storytelling should be to make stories as ubiquitous as music.
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If you don't contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you're not thinking.
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What we do as a community, as a society, for each other, matters as much as what we do for ourselves. It sounds a little trite, but there's a powerful amount of truth in that, I think.
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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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understanding the true nature of instinctive decision making requires us to be forgiving of those people trapped in circumstances where good judgment is imperiled.
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People are experience-rich and theory-poor. I help people organize / make sense of their experiences.
Malcolm Gladwell
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If you think success is about so many more things and is so much more arbitrary, then you can be much more open to the idea that you can be Ben Fountain and publish your great book at forty-nine.
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I should point out that I have a picture of Asbel Kiprop as the screensaver on my phone. Is that embarrassing?
Malcolm Gladwell
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I'm a purist: I start to wrinkle my nose when the Cold War ends.
Malcolm Gladwell