The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

by Malcolm Gladwell

This is the first lesson of the Tipping Point. Starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key areas.

The Band-Aid is an inexpensive, convenient, and remarkably versatile solution to an astonishing array of problems.

Band-Aids have probably allowed millions of people to keep working or playing tennis or cooking or walking when they would otherwise have had to stop.

The Band-Aid solution is actually the best kind of solution because it involves solving a problem with the minimum am...

We think people are different, but not that different.

The world — much as we want it to — does not accord with our intuition.

This is the second lesson of the Tipping Point. Those who are successful at creating social epidemics do not just do what they think is right. ...

To make sense of social epidemics, we must first understand that human communication has its own set of very unusual and counterintuitive rules.

belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their behavior or beliefs in the face of the right kind of impetus. This, too, contradicts some of the most ingrained assumptions we hold about ourselves

We like to think of ourselves as autonomous and inner-directed, that who we are and how we act is something permanently set by our genes and our temperament.

We are actually powerfully influenced by our surroundings, our immediate context, and the personalities of those around us.

To look closely at complex behaviors like smoking or suicide or crime is to appreciate how suggestible we are in the face of what we see and hear, and how acutely sensitive we are to even the smallest details of everyday life.

it is the nature of all of us to be volatile and inexplicable.

Tipping Points are a reaffirmation of the potential for change and the power of intelligent action.

Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push — in just the right place — it can be tipped.