Tipping Quotes

• Some experts look at global warming, increased world temperature, as the critical tipping point that is causing a crash in coral reef health around the world. And there's no question that it is a factor, but it's preceded by the loss of resilience and degradation.

  Sylvia Earle

  Loss, Resilience, Coral Reefs

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• The reality is that a consumer culture which chucks out its iPhones for a new version every nine months is completely unsustainable, because Earth has already reached the tipping point. The General Strike attempts to personalize these issues and encourage listeners to look for a new model.

  Justin Sane

  Reality, Issues, Iphone

  "Anti-Flag’s General Strike Is a Soundtrack for Occupied America" by Scott Thill, www.wired.com. March 29, 2012.

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• I am not alone in thinking that we are at a tipping point ecologically and morally and politically. Democracy cannot survive without a vibrant middle class, yet the policies of one of the parties has been committed to wiping it out for 30 years.

  Deborah Kass

  Party, Thinking, Years

  "Deborah Kass On Appropriation, Barbra Streisand, And The Dissolving Middle Class". Interview with Hallie Sekoff, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 27, 2012.

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• The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Success, Magic Moments, Ideas

  "Women at the Tipping Point...Is Corporate America Ready?" by Jeffery Tobias Halter, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 16, 2017.

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• Doing the little things can make a big difference.

  Yogi Berra

  Differences, Effort, Littles

  Yogi Berra (2010). “What Time Is It? You Mean Now?: Advice for Life from the Zennest Master of Them All”, p.70, Simon and Schuster

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• When well-qualified, upper middle-class blacks or Latinos or Asians move to predominantly white neighborhoods, there's what's called the tipping point. That tipping point is generally 15 percent; at 15 percent you begin to see white flight.

  Richard Benjamin

  Moving, White, Class

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• Do they allow tipping on the boat? - Yes, sir. Have you got two fives? - Oh, yes, sir. Then you won't need the ten cents I was going to give you.

  Groucho Marx

  Funny, Humor, Two

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• There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Simple, Information, Way

  "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference". Book by Malcolm Gladwell, 2000.

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• There are exceptional people out there who are capable of starting epidemics. All you have to do is find them.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Epidemics, People, Starting

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• That is the paradox of the epidemic: that in order to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Epidemics, Order, Movement

  "How to start an epidemic" by Malcolm Gladwell, www.theguardian.com. 2000.

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• Economists often talk about the 80/20 Principle, which is the idea that in any situation roughly 80 percent of the “work” will be done by 20 percent of the participants. In most societies, 20 percent of criminals commit 80 percent of crimes. Twenty percent of motorists cause 80 percent of all accidents. Twenty percent of beer drinkers drink 80 percent of all beer. When it comes to epidemics, though, this disproportionality becomes even more extreme: a tiny percentage of people do the majority of the work.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Beer, Epidemics, Ideas

  "How to start an epidemic" by Malcolm Gladwell, www.theguardian.com. April 22, 2000.

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• A book, I was taught long ago in English class, is a living and breathing document that grows richer with each new reading.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Book, Reading, Long Ago

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• 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.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Looks, World, May

  "How to start an epidemic" by Malcolm Gladwell, www.theguardian.com. April 22, 2000.

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• If you want to bring a fundamental change in people's belief and behavior...you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs can be practiced and expressed and nurtured.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  People, Community, Needs

  "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference". Book by Malcolm Gladwell, www.wired.com. 2000.

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• To be someone's best friend requires a minimum investment of time. More than that, though, it takes emotional energy. Caring about someone deeply is exhausting.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Success, Caring, Emotional

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• The answer is that the success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Epidemics, People, Answers

  "How to start an epidemic" by Malcolm Gladwell, www.theguardian.com. April 22, 2000.

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• People really feel that, when they go to the gas pump now, that the oil cartel is holding them by the legs and tipping them upside down and shaking money out of their pockets.

  Ed Markey

  Oil, People, Pockets

  "Hardball with Chris Matthews", www.nbcnews.com. May 4, 2005.

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• We used to go around tipping outhouses over, or turning over corn shocks on Halloween. Anything to be mean.

  Loretta Lynn

  Halloween, Mean, Corn

  Loretta Lynn (2010). “Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner's Daughter”, p.31, Vintage

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• Reminding myself of all that I have to be thankful for really helps ground me and keeps me from tipping over into that negative place.

  Nikki DeLoach

  Being Thankful, Negative, Helping

  "Interview with Nikki Deloach, actress in the hit show Awkward". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• Every day is an opportunity for a new life. Every day you stand at the tipping point of your life. And on any one day you can change the future – through the way that you feel.

  Rhonda Byrne

  Positive Thinking, Opportunity, One Day

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• A tipping point is invisible, as we just saw in Greece. In most situations, everything appears fine until it's not fine, until, for example, no one shows up at a Treasury auction.

  Seth Klarman

  Example, Auctions, Saws

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• Therapy is often a matter of tipping the first domino.

  Milton H. Erickson

  Matter, Firsts, Therapy

  Milton H. Erickson (1992). “The Wisdom of Milton H. Erickson: Human Behavior and Psychotherapy”, p.128, Ardent Media

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• Scientists are telling us that 350 parts per million [of carbon] in the atmosphere is the upper limit. We're at 387 parts per million now, and we're up in that zone where the risk of going past irrevocable tipping points is elevated. It's no different than going to a doctor and learning your cholesterol is too high, and you're at risk for a heart attack. You have to work to lower your cholesterol and hope to get there before the heart attack comes.

  Bill McKibben

  Heart, Past, Doctors

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• The end of the world was supposed to be gradual. There was supposed to be warning. A long, slow slide. What we got was punctuated equilibrium: a stately wobbling, then a sudden tipping point. There was plenty of warning, I suppose. We just weren’t paying attention.

  Elizabeth Bear

  Long, Attention, Warning

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• When you have a vision of where you need to go, it sounds utopian. But when you get to the tipping point, your understanding switches.

  Christiana Figueres

  Understanding, Vision, Sound

  "We’ll Have a Global Climate Treaty in 2015". Interview with Catherine Brahic, www.slate.com. March 22, 2014.

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