Decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.

Malcolm Gladwell

The power of knowing, in that first two seconds, is not a gift given magically to a fortunate few. It is an ability that we can all cultivate for ourselves. Malcolm Gladwell

‘Thin-slicing' refers to the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behaviour based on very narrow slices of experience.

Malcolm Gladwell

Thin-slicing often delivers a better answer than more deliberate and exhaustive ways of thinking.

Malcolm Gladwell

If you want to get a good idea of whether I'd make a good employee, drop by my house one day and take a look around.

Malcolm Gladwell

What people say about themselves can also be very confusing, for the simple reason that most of us aren't very objective about ourselves.

Malcolm Gladwell

Snap judgments and rapid cognition take place behind a locked door.

Malcolm Gladwell

If we are to learn to improve the quality of the decisions we make, we need to accept the mysterious nature of our snap judgments. Malcolm Gladwell

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What we think of as free will is largely an illusion: much of the time, we are simply operating on automatic pilot.

Malcolm Gladwell

Sometimes we're better off if the mind behind the locked door makes our decisions for us.

Malcolm Gladwell

We can know more about someone or something in the blink of an eye than we can after months of study.

Malcolm Gladwell

We don't deliberately choose our unconscious attitudes.

Malcolm Gladwell

Being short is probably as much of a handicap to corporate success as being a woman or an African American.

Malcolm Gladwell

Our first impressions are generated by our experiences and our environment, which means that we can change our first impressions.

Malcolm Gladwell

Improvisation comedy is a wonderful example of the kind of thinking that Blink is about.

Malcolm Gladwell

How good people's decisions are under the fast-moving, high-stress conditions of rapid cognition is a function of training and rules and rehearsal.

Malcolm Gladwell

Truly successful decision making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking.

Malcolm Gladwell

Deliberate thinking is a wonderful tool when we have the luxury of time. Malcolm Gladwell

If you are given too many choices, if you are forced to consider much more than your unconscious is comfortable with, you get paralyzed.

Malcolm Gladwell

When we talk about analytic versus intuitive decision making, neither is good or bad. What is bad is if you use either of them in an inappropriate circumstance.

Malcolm Gladwell

If you get too caught up in the production of information, you drown in the data.

Malcolm Gladwell

We like market research because it provides certainty. But the truth is that for the most important decisions, there can be no certainty.

Malcolm Gladwell

It is really only experts who are able to reliably account for their reactions.Malcolm Gladwell

We come up with a plausible-sounding reason for why we might like or dislike something, and then we adjust our true preference to be in line with that plausible-sounding reason.

Malcolm Gladwell

Inferring the motivations and intentions of others is classic thin-slicing. It is picking up on subtle, fleeting cues in order to read someone's mind. Malcolm Gladwell

The face has, to a large extent, a mind of its own. Malcolm Gladwell

There is enough accessible information on a face to make everyday mind reading possible.

Malcolm Gladwell

All of us gravitate toward things that mean something to us, and for most of us, that's people. Malcolm Gladwell

Most of us, under pressure, get too aroused, and past a certain point, our bodies begin shutting down so many sources of information that we start to become useless.

Malcolm Gladwell

Arousal leaves us mind-blind.

Malcolm Gladwell

There is always this dissonance between what you see and hear.

Malcolm Gladwell

Taking our powers of rapid cognition seriously means we have to acknowledge the subtle influences that can alter or undermine or bias the products of our unconscious.

Malcolm Gladwell

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