I thoroughly enjoyed The Tipping Point. It read much faster than I anticipated, which always leaves me feeling smart (a feeling I miss a lot since leaving college), and with a breadth of stories that illustrated the author's main points while surfacing thoughts of my own.
Here are a couple quotes I loved:
- "A Social circle is not a circle--it’s a pyramid." Gladwell believes that every social circle has a person at the top (Connector) who drives and connects the entire circle.
- "Simply by finding and reaching those few special people who hold so much social power, we can shape the course of social epidemics."
- "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."
- "Weird as it sounds, if you add up the meaning of the Stanford prison experiment and the New York subway experiment, they suggest that it is possible to be a better person on a clean street or in a clean subway than in one littered with trash and graffiti."
As someone obsessed with change, it was surprising to learn how many times major cultural epidemics happened through small changes. The book gave me a new appreciation and eye for the little things that could potentially lead to the change I'm often seeking.
