Acquaintances, in sort, represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are. - Malcolm Gladwell

Paul Revere's ride is perhaps the most famous historical example of a word-of-mouth epidemic. A piece of extraordinary news traveled a long distance in a very short time, mobilizing an entire region to arms. Not all word-of-mouth epidemics are this sensational, of course. But it is safe to say that word of mouth is-even in this age of mass communications and multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns-still the most important form of human communication

Next time you meet a doctor, and you sit down in his office and he starts to talk, if you have the sense that he isn’t listening to you, that he’s talking down to you, and that he isn’t treating you with respect, listen to that feeling. You have thin-sliced him and found him wanting.

he waits for the kid to decide whether to pull the gun up or simply to drop it - and all the while, even as he tracks the progress of the gun, he is also watching the kid's face, to see whether he is dangerous or simply frightened. is there a more beautiful example of a snap judgment? this is the gift of training and expertise - the ability to extract an enormous amount of meaningful information from the very thinnest slice of experience.