Quotes from Malcolm Gladwell

If you plug in the neocortex ratio for Homo sapiens, you get a group estimate of 147.8-or roughly 150. The figure 150 seems to represent the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship, the kind of relationship that goes with knowing who they are and how they relate to us.

They lacked something that could have been given to them if we'd only known they needed it: a community around them that prepared them properly for the world.

Of the three, the third trait—the idea that epidemics can rise or fall in one dramatic moment—is the most important, because it is the principle that makes sense of the first two and that permits the greatest insight into why modern change happens the way it does. The

We have a definition in our heads of what an advantage is—and the definition isn't right. And what happens as a result? It means that we make mistakes.

The Band-Aid is an inexpensive, convenient, and remarkably versatile solution to an astonishing array of problems.

Innovators have to be open. They have to be able to imagine things that others cannot and to be willing to challenge their own preconceptions.

The mistake we make in thinking of character as something unified and all-encompassing is very similar to a kind of blind spot in the way we process information. Psychologists call this tendency the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), which is a fancy way of saying that when it comes to interpreting other people's behavior, human beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of situation and context.

To look closely at complex behaviors like smoking or suicide or crime is to appreciate how suggestible we are in the face of what we see and hear, and how acutely sensitive we are to even the smallest details of everyday life. That's why social change is so volatile and so often inexplicable, because it is the nature of all of us to be volatile and inexplicable.

To make sense of social epidemics, we must first understand that human communication has its own set of very unusual and counterintuitive rules.

When we see the giant, why do we automatically assume the battle is his for the winning?

We have, I think, a very rigid and limited definition of what an advantage is. We think of things as helpful that actually aren't and think of other things as unhelpful that in reality leave us stronger and wiser.

All good parents understand these three principles implicitly. If you want to stop little Johnnie from hitting his sister, you can't look away one time and scream at him another. You can't treat his sister differently when she hits him. And if he says he really didn't hit his sister, you have to give him a chance to explain himself. How you punish is as important as the act of punishing itself.

There are specific situations so powerful that they can overwhelm our inherent predispositions.

Panic, in this sense, is the opposite of choking. Choking is about thinking too much. Panic is about thinking too little. Choking is about loss of instinct. Panic is reversion to instinct. They may look the same, but they are worlds apart.

Achievement is talent plus preparation.

Telling teenagers about the health risks of smoking—It will make you wrinkled! It will make you impotent! It will make you dead!—is useless," Harris concludes. "This is adult propaganda; these are adult arguments. It is because adults don't approve of smoking—because there is something dangerous and disreputable about it—that teenagers want to do it.

Rod Steiger is the best connected actor in history because he has managed to move up and down and back and forth among all the different worlds and subcultures and niches and levels that the acting profession has to offer. This is what Connectors are like. They are the Rod Steigers of everyday life. They are people whom all of us can reach in only a few steps because, for one reason or another, they manage to occupy many different worlds and subcultures and niches.

We are all of us not merely liable to fear, we are also prone to be afraid of being afraid, and the conquering of fear produces exhilaration

The point about Connectors is that by having a foot in so many different worlds, they have the effect of bringing them all together.

The trickster is not a trickster by nature. He is a trickster by necessity.

David fought Goliath not with inferior but (on the contrary) with superior weaponry; and his greatness consisted not in his being willing to go out into battle against someone far stronger than he was. But in his knowing how to exploit a weapon by which a feeble person could seize the advantage and become stronger.

The Power of the Glance Thin-slicing is not an exotic gift. It is a central part of what it means to be human. We thin-slice whenever we meet a new person or have to make sense of something quickly or encounter a novel situation. We thin-slice because we have to, and we come to rely on that ability because there are lots of hidden fists out there, lots of situations where careful attention to the details of a very thin slice, even for no more than a second or two, can tell us an awful lot.

Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung. We make rules that frustrate achievement. 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. And, most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play — and by "we" I mean society — in determining who makes it and who doesn't.

Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities