James Surowiecki Quotes

Most people who try those bizarre trends are looking for magic bullets. There's usually a sexy promise attached to these trends - related to diet or fitness - that many people find too tempting to resist.

People want gimmicks. They have to lose 10 pounds by 8:30 tonight.

We live in a world of instant gratification, the world of the quick fix.

But if you pick up every other magazine, it is the peanut butter diet, or the cabbage soup diet, and then you go to the radio and you hear that you can drink some solution and you will lose weight overnight. It just does not work that way!

It's difficult to do something radically new, unless you are at the heart of a company.

Everyone is looking for the hack, the secret to success without hard work.

There is always a temptation for governments: see a problem and announce a quick fix.

The short-term vision is: I research on something which I can use tomorrow, and for some politicians it is even better if it's today. But if you do this, you can only do targeted research. If you only do targeted research, you lose the side-routes.

Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages.

It is rarely the quick fix that goes the farthest. So don't get tempted by political cycles and the lure of electoral wins.

There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.

Impatience translates itself into a desire to have something immediate done about it all, and, as is generally the case with impatience, resolves itself in the easiest way that lies ready to hand.

Television has spread the habit of instant reaction and has stimulated the hope of instant results.

The West is very impatient. You want overnight change.

When I was discovered, everything happened like dominos. I don't know how to talk about it now because it's too mindblowing. It's so unreal, and yet it's real.

I really swung between the extremes. From the danger of being ostracised by the society, I almost overnight found myself as virtually the darling of the millions.

That's the problem with our industry: patience. People want instant NBA stars, and that's not going to happen.

Could you physically lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks? Maybe. But there's no way you could do that in a healthy way or that you could maintain it.

I'll go to my grave saying a gimmick is not good public policy.

Those magazine dieting stories always have the testimonial of a woman who wore a dress that could slipcover New Jersey in one photo and thirty days later looked like a well-dressed thermometer.

The NeXT purchase is too little too late. Apple is already dead.

You can't work three hours a week and make $100,000. Get rich quick doesn't work. Crock pot mentality always defeats microwave mentality!

Duct tape is not a perfect solution to anything. But with a little creativity, in a pinch, it's an adequate solution to just about everything.

Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month.

There are some things that you can work on immediately.