That is the paradox of the epidemic: that in order to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first.

— Malcolm Gladwell

That's like being a hockey player born on January I.

— Malcolm Gladwell

The entire principle of a blind taste test was ridiculous. They shouldn't have cared so much that they were losing blind taste tests with old Coke, and we shouldn't at all be surprised that Pepsi's dominance in blind taste tests never translated too much in the real world. Why not? Because in the real world, no one ever drinks Coca-Cola blind.

— Malcolm Gladwell

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.

— Malcolm Gladwell

The injunction to be nice is used to deflect criticism and stifle the legitimate anger of dissent.

— Malcolm Gladwell

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.

— Malcolm Gladwell

The most common form of gigantism is a condition called acromial, and acromial is caused by a benign tumor on your pituitary gland that causes an overproduction of human growth hormone. And throughout history, many of the most famous giants have all had acromial.

— Malcolm Gladwell

The name given to that one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once is the Tipping Point.

— Malcolm Gladwell

The notion that the only way you can critically engage with a person’s ideas is to take a shot at them, is to be openly critical — this is actually nonsense. Some of the most effective ways in which you deal with someone’s idea are to treat them completely at face value, and with an enormous amount of respect. That’s actually a faster way to engage with what they’re getting at than to lob grenades in their direction… If you’re going to hold someone to what they believe, make sure you accurately represent what they believe.

— Malcolm Gladwell

The paradox of endurance sports is that an athlete can never work as hard as he wants, because if he pushes himself too far, his hematocrit will fall.

— Malcolm Gladwell