785 Quotes by Malcolm Gladwell

if we can control the environment in which rapid cognition takes place, then we can control rapid cognition

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

Did they know why they knew? Not at all. But the Knew!

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.

I feel I change my mind all the time. And I sort of feel that's your responsibility as a person, as a human being – to constantly be updating your positions on as many things as possible. And if you don't contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you're not thinking.

Numerous studies of human cognition have come to parallel conclusions: the human brain can divide random stimuli into about six or seven different categories. For example, the average person can distinguish between about six different musical notes before getting confused.

If you knew my father, you would have seen him in other stressful situations, and you would have come to understand that the “frightened” face, for whatever reason, was simply not part of his repertoire. In crisis, he turned deadly calm. But if you didn’t know him, what would you have thought? Would you have concluded that he was cold? Unfeeling? When we confront a stranger, we have to substitute an idea—a stereotype—for direct experience. And that stereotype is wrong all too often.

The thing we want to learn about a stranger is fragile. If we tread carelessly it will crumple under our feet... The right way to talk to strangers is with caution and humility.

Why is the fact that each of us comes from a culture with its own distinctive mix of strengths and weaknesses, tendencies and predispositions, so difficult to acknowledge? Who we are cannot be separated from where we’re from—and when we ignore that fact, planes crash.