Quotes from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We're a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we don't really have an explanation for.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“Insight is not a lightbulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“In the act of tearing something apart, you lose its meaning.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“our world requires that decisions be sourced and footnoted, and if we say how we feel, we must also be prepared to elaborate on why we feel that way...We need to respect the fact that it is possible to know without knowing why we know and accept that - sometimes - we're better off that way.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“We live in a world that assumes that the quality of a decision is directly related to the time and effort that went into making it...We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible an depending as much time as possible in deliberation. We really only trust conscious decision making. But there are moments, particularly in times of stress, when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions can offer a much better means of making sense of the world. The first task of Blink is to convince you of a simple fact: decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“When we become expert in something, our tastes grow more esoteric and complex.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“Anyone who has ever scanned the bookshelves of a new girlfriend or boyfriend- or peeked inside his or her medicine cabinet- understands this implicitly; you can learn as much - or more - from one glance at a private space as you can from hours of exposure to a public face.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“[Research] suggests that what we think of as free will is largely an illusion: much of the time, we are simply operating on automatic pilot, and the way we think and act – and how well we think and act on the spur of the moment – are a lot more susceptible to outside influences than we realize.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“being able to act intelligently and instinctively in the moment is possible only after a long and rigorous of education and experience”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“The answer is that we are not helpless in the face of our first impressions. They may bubble up from the unconscious - from behind a locked door inside of our brain - but just because something is outside of awareness doesn't mean it's outside of control.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“Often a sign of expertise is noticing what doesn't happen.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“...mediocre people find their way into positions of authority...because when it comes to even the most important positions, our selection decisions are a good deal less rational than we think.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“People are in one of two states in a relationship,” Gottman went on. “The first is what I call positive sentiment override, where positive emotion overrides irritability. It’s like a buffer. Their spouse will do something bad, and they’ll say, ‘Oh, he’s just in a crummy mood.’ Or they can be in negative sentiment override, so that even a relatively neutral thing that a partner says gets perceived as negative.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“Did they know why they knew? Not at all. But the Knew!”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“understanding the true nature of instinctive decision making requires us to be forgiving of those people trapped in circumstances where good judgment is imperiled.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“Our world requires that decisions be sourced and footnoted, and if we say how we feel, we must also be prepared to elaborate on why we feel that way. I think that approach is a mistake, and if we are to learn to improve the quality of the decisions we make, we need to accept the mysterious nature of our snap judgements. We need to respect the fact that it is possible to know without knowing why we know and accept that — sometimes — we’re better off that way.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“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 to much in the real world. Why not? Because in the real world, no one ever drinks Coca-Cola blind.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“extreme visual clarity, tunnel vision, diminished sound, and the sense that time is slowing down. this is how the human body reacts to extreme stress.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“our unconscious reactions come out of a locked room, and we can't look inside that room. but with experience we become expert at using our behavior and our training to interpret - and decode - what lies behind our snap judgment and first impressions.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“In life, most of us are highly skilled at suppressing action. All the improvisation teacher has to do is to reverse this skill and he creates very ‘gifted’ improvisers. Bad improvisers block action, often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“The real me isn't the person I describe, no the real me is the me revealed by my actions.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“Whenever we have something that we are good at--something we care about--that experience and passion fundamentally change the nature of our first impressions.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“I've been in auditions without screens, and I can assure you that I was prejudiced. I began to listen with my eyes, and there is no way that your eyes don't affect your judgement. The only true way to listen is with your ears and your heart. (p.251)”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“But in the end it comes down to a matter of respect, and the simplest way that respect is communicated is through tone of voice, and the most corsive tone of voice that a doctor can assume is a dominant tone. ”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“Some people look like they sound better than they actually sound, because they look confident and have good posture," once musician, a veteran of many auditions, says. "Other people look awful when they play but sound great. Other people have that belabored look when they play, but you can't hear it in the sound. There is always this dissonance between what you see and hear" (p.251).”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“our power of thin-slicing and snap judgment are extraordinary.but even the giant computer in our unconscious need a moment to do its work.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

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Popular quotes

“It takes great courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it. And even more courage to see it in the one you love”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from An Ideal Husband

“Is power like the vis viva and the quantite d’avancement? That is, is it conserved by the universe, or is it like shares of a stock, which may have great value one day, and be worthless the next? If power is like stock shares, then it follows that the immense sum thereof lately lost by B[olingbroke] has vanished like shadows in sunlight. For no matter how much wealth is lost in stock crashes, it never seems to turn up, but if power is conserved, then B’s must have gone somewhere. Where is it? Some say ‘twas scooped up by my Lord R, who hid it under a rock, lest my Lord M come from across the sea and snatch it away. My friends among the Whigs say that any power lost by a Tory is infallibly and insensibly distributed among all the people, but no matter how assiduously I search the lower rooms of the clink for B’s lost power, I cannot seem to find any there, which explodes that argument, for there are assuredly very many people in those dark salons. I propose a novel theory of power, which is inspired by . . . the engine for raising water by fire. As a mill makes flour, a loom makes cloth and a forge makes steel, so we are assured this engine shall make power. If the backers of this device speak truly, and I have no reason to deprecate their honesty, it proves that power is not a conserved quantity, for of such quantities, it is never possible to make more. The amount of power in the world, it follows, is ever increasing, and the rate of increase grows ever faster as more of these engines are built. A man who hordes power is therefore like a miser who sits on a heap of coins in a realm where the currency is being continually debased by the production of more coins than the market can bear. So that what was a great fortune, when first he raked it together, insensibly becomes a slag heap, and is found to be devoid of value. When at last he takes it to the marketplace to be spent. Thus my Lord B and his vaunted power hoard what is true of him is likely to be true of his lackeys, particularly his most base and slavish followers such as Mr. Charles White. This varmint has asserted that he owns me. He fancies that to own a man is to have power, yet he has got nothing by claiming to own me, while I who was supposed to be rendered powerless, am now writing for a Grub Street newspaper that is being perused by you, esteemed reader.”
― Neal Stephenson, quote from The System of the World

“Mature love is union under the condition of preserving one's integrity, one's individuality; a power which breaks through the walls which separate man from his fellow men, which unites him with others; love makes him overcome the sense of isolation and separateness, yet it permits him to be himself, to retain his integrity.”
― Erich Fromm, quote from The Art of Loving

“The earth will spin, the stars will rearrange themselves around one another and the world will crawl with the dead who one day will drop into nothingness: no humans left for them to scent, no flesh for them to crave. Everything- all of us will simply cease to be.

They'll find peace only when we're all dead.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“Dying for something is easy because it is associated with glory. Living for something is the hard thing. Living for something extends beyond fashion, glory, or recognition. We live for what we believe.”
― Donald Miller, quote from Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

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