Malcolm Gladwell Quotes

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Malcolm Gladwell

Profession : Author

Birth : September 3, 1963

It's very hard to find someone who's successful and dislikes what they do.

Malcolm Gladwell

I try to be unafraid of making a fool of myself.

Malcolm Gladwell

Rarely do we stop and consider whether the most prestigious of institutions is always in our best interest.

Malcolm Gladwell

I grew up in southwestern Ontario in the heart of a Mennonite community. All my family are part of the Mennonite church.

Malcolm Gladwell

All my books are optimistic!

Malcolm Gladwell

We all assume that if you're weak and poor, you're never going to win. In fact, the real world is full of examples where the exact opposite happens, where the weak win and the strong screw up.

Malcolm Gladwell

I've had the most untraumatic life a human being can have. But I've always been drawn to those who have had far more complicated histories.

Malcolm Gladwell

If you're smarter than me, you shouldn't be reading my books.

Malcolm Gladwell

If I was President of the United States, I'd rather be right than interesting. If I was CEO of a company, I'd rather be right than interesting. But I'm a journalist - what journalist would rather be right than interesting?

Malcolm Gladwell

I don't want a door bell. I don't want anyone ringing my door bell... seems to be intrusive. They can call me on their cell phones.

Malcolm Gladwell

I don't understand, given the constraints physicians have in doing their job and the paperwork demanded of them, why people want to be physicians. I think we've made it very, very difficult for them to perform their job. I think that's a shame.

Malcolm Gladwell

You don't train someone for all of those years of medical school and residency, particularly people who want to help others optimize their physical and psychological health, and then have them run a claims-processing operation for insurance companies.

Malcolm Gladwell

A handicap is like trying to race and you have a ten pound weight stuck to your waist. That is a handicap.

Malcolm Gladwell

There is an important idea in psychology: The 'just world theory,' which says that it is very important for us to convince ourselves that the world is just and things happen for a reason. That there is some elemental fairness in everything, which creates the illusion of justice.

Malcolm Gladwell

For some small number of people, a parental loss appears to be, ultimately, a desirable difficulty - again, not a large number.

Malcolm Gladwell

If you are going to do something truly innovative, you have to be someone who does not value social approval. You can't need social approval to go forward. Otherwise, how would you ever do the thing that you are doing?

Malcolm Gladwell

I remember as a kid watching one of the Olympic games, and I was cheering for a big track athlete. He was the favorite to win, and he lost. I realized in that moment the pain he felt was so much greater than the pain that those who never thought they were going to win would have felt had they lost.

Malcolm Gladwell

I am far more distress-avoidant than I am joy-seeking.

Malcolm Gladwell

All three of the great waves of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century European immigrants to America innovated.

Malcolm Gladwell

Books about spies and traitors - and the congressional hearings that follow the exposure of traitors - generally assume that false-negative errors are much worse than false-positive errors.

Malcolm Gladwell