No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.
Malcolm GladwellRead
We used to say poor people had lousy genes. Then we decided that wasn't OK, but we transferred the prejudice to upbringing. We said, 'You were neglected as a child, so you'll never make it.' That's just as pernicious.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote challenges the notion that upbringing determines success, emphasizing that such beliefs can be harmful.
Malcolm Gladwell's quote critiques the prejudice that arises from attributing people's failures solely to their upbringing. It argues that labeling individuals as incapable due to their childhood neglect is just as detrimental as blaming genetic factors, thus highlighting the importance of perspective in understanding people's potential and the complexities of success.
Themes
SuccessUpbringingPrejudicePotentialNeglect
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about overcoming adversity, one could quote Gladwell to emphasize resilience.
More from Malcolm Gladwell
All quotes →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 GladwellRead
The people at the top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.
Malcolm GladwellRead
Achievement is talent plus preparation. The problem with this view is that the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play.
Malcolm GladwellRead
When I go to my health club, and it's in the basement, you have to take the elevator down. And this drives me crazy. Why can't there be a stairway? At least make it as easy to exercise as it is to not exercise. It's in society's interest for me to take the stairs.
Malcolm GladwellRead
Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning.
Malcolm GladwellRead
Similar quotes
The journalistic 'I' is an overreliable narrator, a functionary to whom crucial tasks of narration and argument and tone have been entrusted, an ad hoc creation, like the chorus of Greek tragedy. He is an emblematic figure, an embodiment of the idea of the dispassionate observer of life.
Janet MalcolmRead
Time drops in decay Like a candle burnt out. And the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day; But, kindly old rout Of the fire-born moods, You pass not away.
William Butler YeatsRead
For John was running, and this was terrible. Because if you ran, time ran. You yelled and screamed and raced and rolled and tumbled and all of a sudden the sun was gone and the whistle was blowing and you were on your long way home to supper. When you weren't looking, the sun got around behind you! The only way to keep things slow was to watch everything and do nothing! You could stretch a day to three days, sure, just by watching!
Ray BradburyRead
As long as a human being worries about when he will die, and what he has that is his,_x000D_ all of his works are zero._x000D_ When affection for the I-creature and what it owns is dead,_x000D_ then the work of the Teacher is over.
KabirRead
Oh, God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"_x000D_ Abe said, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"_x000D_ God said, "No" Abe say, "What?"_x000D_ God say, "You can do what you want, Abe, but_x000D_ The next time you see me comin', you better run"_x000D_ Well, Abe said, "Where d'you want this killin' done?"_x000D_ God said, "Out on Highway 61".
Bob DylanRead
A democracy,- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness' sake I will call it the idea of Freedom.
Theodore ParkerRead