Malcolm Gladwell Quotes About Opportunity

Quotes about: Opportunity

• The fact of being an underdog changes people in ways that we often fail to appreciate. It opens doors and creates opportunities and enlightens and permits things that might otherwise have seemed unthinkable.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Opportunity, Doors, People

  "Malcolm Gladwell: 'If my books appear oversimplified, then you shouldn't read them'" by Oliver Burkeman, www.theguardian.com. September 29, 2013.

• To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages today that determine success--the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history--with a society that provides opportunities for all.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Opportunity, Today, Happy Accidents

• Outlier are those who have been given opportunities-- -and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Opportunity, Presence Of Mind, Given

• The successful are those who have been given opportunities.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Successful, Opportunity, Presence Of Mind

  "Outliers". Book by Malcolm Gladwell, www.sfgate.com. November 18, 2008.

• The lesson here is very simple. But it is striking how often it is overlooked. We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur. But that's the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today?

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Success, Teenager, Spring

• It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success. It’s the rich who get the biggest tax breaks. It’s the best students who get the best teaching and most attention. And it’s the biggest nine- and ten-year-olds who get the most coaching and practice. Success is the result of what sociologists like to call “accumulative advantage.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Teaching, Successful, Opportunity

• Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don't. They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky - but all critical to making them who they are. The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Lying, Math, Opportunity

• Do you see the consequences of the way we have chosen to think about success? Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung...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.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Mean, Opportunity, Thinking

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

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Powerful, Opportunity, Arise

  "Google Takes One Giant Leap in Building the Connected Classroom" by Mark W. Guay, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 10, 2013.

• It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Successful, Opportunity, Special

• Flom had the same experience...He didn't triumph over adversity. Instead, what started out as adversity ended up being an opportunity.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Adversity, Opportunity, Triumph

• The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Kings, Hard Work, Opportunity

  "Outliers: The Story of Success". Book by Malcolm Gladwell, November 18, 2008.

• The sense of possibility so necessary for success comes not just from inside us or from our parents. It comes from our time: from the particular opportunities that our place in history presents us with.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Opportunity, Parent, Possibility

• People who are busy doing things - as opposed to people who are busy sitting around, like me, reading and having coffee in coffee shops -don't have opportunities to kind of collect and organize their experiences and make sense of them.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Coffee, Reading, Opportunity

  "The man who can't stop thinking" by Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. November 15, 2008.

• I don't think people are averse to thinking about things in a deep way, but we have limited time and opportunity to think about things in a deep way. I think that's why there is an appetite for non-fiction - it gives people the opportunity to reexamine ordinary experience and be smarter about it.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Opportunity, Thinking, People

  Interview with Donna Bowman, www.avclub.com. November 17, 2008.

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