Quotes & Sayings About Critical Mass

Violent men, and men in authority over violent men, and the broader public that authorises those men, are not yet shamed by the harm of coercive control over women ... Maybe we can rest some hope on the growing activity of men of goodwill calling on each other to change. When that group hits a critical mass, the majority of men will be more likely to want to change. — Lee Lakeman

He wonders how so much water can resist the pull of so much gravity for the time it takes such pregnant clouds to form, he wonders about the moment the rain begins, the turn from forming to falling, that slight silent pause in the physics of the sky as the critical mass is reached, the hesitation before the first swollen drop hurtles fatly and effortlessly to the ground. — Jon McGregor

One thing matters more than anything else for a dating product, and that is the quantity and quality of the people who use the product. It's really freaking hard to get critical mass. — Sam Yagan

The most critical of these new religious developments for twentieth-century religious liberalism were a renewed and transformed emphasis on mystical practice and experience, the healing ministry known as mind cure, and the rise of modern psychology. These three interrelated spiritual innovations spread as significant components of popular religion in large part through the mass print media. Rather than religious movements dependent on revivalism or church life, these were first and foremost discourses, creatures of the printed word. Initially explored only by an avant-garde of liberal intellectuals late in the nineteenth century, the new books and ideas emerging at the margins of liberal Protestantism eventually reached a nation-wide middle-class audience. The mass media unleashed by nineteenth-century evangelicalism enabled the alternative spiritualities of the twentieth century to flourish, especially with the rise of religious middlebrow culture in the decades after World War I. — Matthew Hedstrom

See, guys freak out. They hit critical mass and blast nuclear, white-hot anger out over the world like walking flamethrowers. But girls freak in. They absorb the pain and bitterness and keep right on sponging it up until they drown. — Laura Wiess

I do genuinely believe that the political system is not linear. When it reaches a tipping point fashioned by a critical mass of opinion, the slow pace of change we're used to will no longer be the norm. I see a lot of signs every day that we're moving closer and closer to that tipping point. — Al Gore

There is a huge trapdoor waiting to open under anyone who is critical of so-called 'popular culture' or (to redefine this subject) anyone who is uneasy about the systematic, massified cretinization of the major media. If you denounce the excess coverage, you are yourself adding to the excess. If you show even a slight knowledge of the topic, you betray an interest in something that you wish to denounce as unimportant or irrelevant. Some writers try to have this both ways, by making their columns both 'relevant' and 'contemporary' while still manifesting their self-evident superiority. Thus - I paraphrase only slightly - 'Even as we all obsess about Paris Hilton, the people of Darfur continue to die.' A pundit like (say) Bob Herbert would be utterly lost if he could not pull off such an apparently pleasing and brilliant 'irony. — Christopher Hitchens

Today you're in a hospital. Or at least this morning. This hour. This minute. Where you'll be three minutes from now is anyone's guess. You've begun to notice, though, that, bit by bit the sense of being outside yourself has diminished with each passing day. A critical mass is reached, and now your soul collapses in upon itself.
You're back inside the vessel of your body.
Just one. Just you. Just an individual.
Me. — Neal Shusterman

I don't know if the books are making the world a much better place. I don't write with that objective. What I know is that I see my readers creating a critical mass so we can at least understand this world in a different way. — Paulo Coelho

The alternative which I favor is to renounce all euphemisms and grasp the nettle of the word atheism itself, precisely because it is a taboo word carrying frissons of hysterical phobia. Critical mass may be harder to achieve than with some non-confrontational euphemism, but if we did achieve it with the dread word atheist, the political impact would be all the greater. — Richard Dawkins

I have always felt that perhaps women have sometimes almost embraced the same values as men, and the same character as men, because they are in the men's world, and they are trying to fit into a system that men have created. And maybe in truth when there is a critical mass of women who play that role in governments, then we will see whether women can really manage power in a way that is less destructive than the way that men have used power. — Wangari Maathai

It's just starting. I think it's going to take another year and a half to get up to critical mass, but everybody loves Chinese food, Thai food, Japanese food, and it's all been exploited. The Filipinos combined the best of all of that with Spanish technique. The Spanish were a colonial power there for 500 years, and they left behind adobo and cooking in vinegar - techniques that, applied to those tropical Asian ingredients, are miraculous. — Andrew Zimmern

So in 2000, when we changed the business model and started really focusing on that triangle and putting the customer in the center, we decided we should hold off - we've done enough consolidation; we've got enough critical mass. — Sanjay Kumar

If you look at space companies, they've failed either because they've had a technical solution where success was not a possible outcome, they were unable to attract a critical mass of talent, or they just ran out of money. The finish line is usually a lot further away than you think. — Elon Musk

However, in the twenty-first century the majority of both men and women might lose their military and economic value. Gone is the mass conscription of the two world wars. The most advanced armies of the twenty-first century rely far more on cutting-edge technology. Instead of limitless cannon fodder, countries now need only small numbers of highly trained soldiers, even smaller numbers of special forces super-warriors and a handful of experts who know how to produce and use sophisticated technology. Hi-tech forces 'manned' by pilotless drones and cyber-worms are replacing the mass armies of the twentieth century, and generals delegate more and more critical decisions to algorithms. — Yuval Noah Harari

A strong player, which has the sufficient critical mass, can withhold pressure better and create a more stable environment that benefits shareholders as well as employees. — Lakshmi Mittal

The first stage in a technology's advance is that it'll fall below a critical price. After it falls below a critical price, it will tend, if it's successful, to rise above a critical mass, a penetration. — Chris Anderson

The Internet was always destined to be ... The framework for its invention has always existed so to one day provide a vehicle for Critical Mass Consciousness. Through its speed and convenience, the Internet has the power for global and indeed universal transformation. Critical Mass Consciousness can work with the Law of Attraction to actualize an abundant global paradigm for all. Naturally, there is also an opportunity for misuse. How this medium is used on a personal and mass level will determine this culture's past and future karma ... You're at page ten but I understand the entire evolution. In reality, it's already over. It's a dream. Remember? You're living a dream. It's very complicated to hold the dream and live the dream. You are learning the art of juggling the dream and the world of dreams."-Kuan Yin (from "Critical Mass Consciousness: Kuan Yin Speaks on Humanity's Evolutionary Potential — Hope Bradford

I won't live to see the death-with-dignity movement reach critical mass, but I call on you to carry it forward. — Brittany Maynard

So, for me, working with larger companies has often been very satisfying, precisely because of the ability of bringing critical mass to bear on a given effort. — Vint Cerf

I used to wonder if a mother could see the shift when her child became an adult. I wondered if it was clinical, like at the onset of puberty; or emotional, like the first time his heart was broken; or temporal, like the moment he said I do. I used to wonder if maybe it was a critical mass of life experiences - graduation, first job, first baby - that tipped the balance; if it was the sort of thing you noticed immediately when you saw it, like a port-wine stain of sudden gravitas, or if it crept up slowly, like age in a mirror. Now I know: adulthood is a line drawn in the sand. At some point, your child will be standing on the other side. I — Jodi Picoult

The really interesting moment will be when you have a critical mass of people engaging through the networks, more than through the press and TV. When that happens, the culture of politics has to change, moving away from controlled one-way messages towards a political culture that is more questioning. — Geoff Mulgan

Think of humanity as a giant software program. Our bodies are the hardware and our ideas are the software. Sometimes our software gets a virus : Religious misinterpretations.
People who are infected with flawed religious ideas can infect others, especially their
children. The religions spread and mutate, until there are thousands of different religious ideas, most of them harmless, some healthy and helpful, but others quite deadly. When the deadly ones reach critical mass, they threaten the whole. — Scott Adams

Steve [sports psychiatrist] had already taught me to try and stop worrying so much about pleasing everyone. We knew that this was one of my most draining flaws and he again used three groups to clarify my thinking. There would always be some people, Steve said, who would care about me and love me. In contrast there would also be a select group of people who would never warm to me - no matter what I did. And in the middle came the overwhelming mass who were largely indifferent to any of my failures or triumphs. I needed to understand that most people didn't really care what I did or said. All my anguish about how they might perceive me was redundant. Steve helped me realize that I spent too much time trying to please those oblivious people in the middle or, more problematically, the small group who would never change their critical opinion of me. I should concentrate on the people who really did show concern for me. — Victoria Pendleton

Monsters remain human beings. In fact, to reduce them to a subhuman level is to exonerate them of their acts of terrorism and mass murder - just as animals are not deemed morally responsible for killing. Insisting on the humanity of terrorists is, in fact, critical to maintaining their profound responsibility for the evil they commit.
And, if they are human, then they must necessarily not be treated in an inhuman fashion. You cannot lower the moral baseline of a terrorist to the subhuman without betraying a fundamental value. — Andrew Sullivan

Tiko has taught me, a sometimes headstrong and often ferociously independent woman, the importance of interdependence, the importance of taking care, and the importance of being cared for. It's a necessary part of being human and being connected to the world around us that we realize and acknowledge our vulnerability and the vulnerability of all creatures, and that we act in accord with that knowledge. It is critical that we allow the empathetic and altruistic part of ourselves to be the guiding force behind the way that we conduct our lives, whether we give to those less fortunate than ourselves, take care of the magnificent creatures that share our world, work tirelessly to preserve native habitat or separate each strand of an unruly mass of hair so gently that we do not wake our loved one as she sleeps. — Joanna Burger

English language is the most universal language in history, way more than the Latin of Julius Caesar. It's the most punderful language because its vocabulary has a certain critical mass that makes a lingo good for punning. — Richard Lederer

There are multiple ways to be externally focused that are very successful. You can be customer-focused or competitor-focused. Some people are internally focused, and if they reach critical mass, they can tip the whole company. — Jeff Bezos

I actually don't think it matters how early or late you are as long as you hit critical mass. — Drew Houston

The signs that the world is spinning out of kilter are increasingly difficult to misinterpret. The question is how to convince enough people to join a critical mass of urgent opinion, in the U.S. and the rest of the world. — Al Gore

The West has to take a critical look at itself and examine the apparent double standards at work that allow it to attack Iraq for possessing weapons of mass destruction but not North Korea, whose leader shared Saddam Hussein's megalomaniacal qualities; that permit it to rail against Iran about nuclear weapons but be silent about Israel's arsenal; that allow it to only selectively demand enforcement of UN resolutions. The West has to own up to the mistakes it has made: such as with Abu Ghraib and the torture in Afghan prisons; in the errant attacks on civilians; in its disregard for the basic precept of a civilized legal system, which maintains that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty. — Kathy Gannon

'The Lake of Dreams' grew gradually, over many years, elements and ideas accruing until they gained enough critical mass to become a novel. — Kim Edwards

Men of genius supply the substance of history, while the mass of men are but the critical filter, the limiting, slackening, passive force needed for the modification of ideas supplied by genius. — Henri Frederic Amiel

Politicians would only move beyond gestures once there was a critical mass of informed citizens. — Paul Collier

When I was admitted to the University of Leiden, I expected to be presented with a single narrative of events and their significance and one explanation for why everything had happened as it did. Instead, the professors began every course with a central question; spent a lot of time on definitions and their importance; then presented key thinkers and their critics over time. My job as a student was to grasp the central question; to learn about the thinkers, their theories of power, political elites, mass psychology and sociology, and public policy; the methods by which they got to their conclusions; their critics and their methods of criticism. The point of all these exercises was to learn to improve on old ways of doing things through critical thinking. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

When the size of the group supporting your cause reaches a critical mass, any legislator or elected official has to pay attention. — Mark Shields

What is so incredible and essential about an authentic cultural scene is it rejects a value system based on consumption and productivity and instead celebrates creation, critical thought, aesthetics and expression. That can't be mass marketed. — Claire Vaye Watkins

Either way, every multisided platform has to have a strategy for making the trek to the critical mass frontier from which they can survive and prosper. — David S. Evans

Weight Weight is an implied, if not critical, concept in design and animation. How you show an object in motion greatly affects its weight and therefore its believability. Weight in animation is a perception of mass. An object's movement, how it reacts in motion, and how it reacts to other objects — Dariush Derakhshani

Politics and religion in the United States work like the twin grips of a pair of pliers on a critical mass of the masses. — Roseanne Barr

We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In this exquisitely connected world, it's never a question of 'critical mass.' It's always about critical connections. — Grace Lee Boggs

Civil unrest occurs when the feelings of overwhelming powerlessness hit critical mass. — Michael Connelly

It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What's needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take 'everyone on Earth' to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

A brand is something that has a clear-cut identity among consumers, which a company creates by sending out a clear, consistent message over a period of years until it achieves a critical mass of marketing. — Phil Knight

When an idea reaches critical mass there is no stopping the shift its presence will induce. — Marianne Williamson

Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority. But a good first step would be to build up a critical mass of those willing to 'come out,' thereby encouraging others to do so. Even if they can't be herded, cats in sufficient numbers can make a lot of noise and they cannot be ignored. — Richard Dawkins

With communication technology in general, there's a kind of certain critical mass of people. Once you get to 15% of the world's entire population using one communication technology, that's a big deal. It's beyond the theoretical at this point. The people who think it's a fad have probably not been paying that much attention. — Ben Horowitz

Success in TV-showmaking is just a matter of being authentic and doing the best you can, and you hope that people watch it and like it. For us [showmakers], we know where our bread is buttered, and we live by the written word of the critic. That's how shows build a critical mass on cable. — Walton Goggins

When a critical mass of people have the Bible and apply what it teaches in their lives, a nation is transformed. — Loren Cunningham

Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxide was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous "blow" with a dust whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the sand for whatever lay on the surface. The — Frank Herbert

Ignoring platforms that have gained critical mass is a great way to look slow and out-of-touch. Do not cling to nostalgia. Do not put your principles above the reality of the market. Do not be a snob. — Gary Vaynerchuk

Media literacy is not just important, it's absolutely critical. It's going to make the difference between whether kids are a tool of the mass media or whether the mass media is a tool for kids to use. — Linda Ellerbee

For so long considered a second-rate category to other writing genres, Science Fiction should be allotted its true place in literature. The reason Science Fiction is so important is because SF authors create the future. They bring through ideas, technology, and new thought, put it all down in written and spoken word, and then send it out into mass consciousness. When enough people (a critical mass) think about and truly consider the plausibility of a concept, it becomes reality. Think William Gibson, who in 1982's "Burning Chrome" coined "cyberspace". Few grasped the concept at the time, but as the internet took hold in the 1990's, we not only had a word to describe our experience, we had a definition and an understanding, as well. Coincidence? — Joseph Duda

I would speculate that a critical mass of the population has to internalize a middle class outlook first. International aid experience has demonstrated many times that just building railroads doesn't get you there. You need people ready to sue them. — Charles R. Morris

Until competency management platforms gain widespread acceptance, "badges" or "stackable credentials" are unlikely to gain much traction. The notion that educated adults, like the boy and girl scouts they once were, will prefer to flaunt a collection of badges testifying to skills they have demonstrated is flawed for one reason. While degrees are validated by a single institution with a recognizable form (i.e., colleges and universities), who is validating a collection of badges? Who vouches that a student has demonstrated a given skill? Although many visionary organizations are seeking to enter this market, outside of IT none currently has the ability or credibility to authenticate such credentials in a way that would be acceptable to a critical mass of employers and students. — Ryan Craig

Despite current ads and slogans, the world doesn't change one person at a time. It changes when networks of relationships form among people who share a common cause and vision of what's possible. This is good news for those of us intent on creating a positive future. Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections. We don't need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits. Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage and commitment that lead to broad-based change. — Margaret J. Wheatley

Effective altruism is an advance in ethical behavior as well as in the practical application of our ability to reason. I have described it as an emerging movement, and that term suggests that it will continue to develop and spread. If it does, then once there is a critical mass of effective altruists, it will no longer seem odd for anyone to regard bringing about "the most good I can do" as an important life goal. If effective altruism does become mainstream, I would expect it to spread more rapidly, for then it will be apparent that it is easy to do a great deal of good and feel better about your life as a result. — Peter Singer

The sense of endings as well as beginnings in the air is now so obvious in so many dimensions of our experience that a critical mass has been reached. — Marianne Williamson

My hope is that we would begin to have a dialogue in this country about the importance of civility. We can have strong differences, but it does seem to me that most of the country believes it's gone to critical mass in what I would call the professional class across the political spectrum - left and right. — Tom Brokaw

When enough electrons within an atom get aligned and a critical mass is reached - as soon as you hit that hundredth monkey, as soon as you hit the one - you have phase transition, and all the rest of the electrons automatically make the change. My mission - what I teach and what I believe in - is that you just get yourself aligned with God-consciousness. If we teach enough people to do it - if enough of us ultimately get there - then we'll start electing leaders with this kind of consciousness. We'll start seeing kinds of shifts taking their place. — Wayne Dyer

There is critical mass with high-speed Internet connections, so video is a good user experience. And that means there can be critical mass for advertisers. — Jim C. Walton

Magic?' Kate snorted. 'There's no such thing. Is there?'
'Magic?' Barnabas shrugged. 'Why not? Magic is cool.'
'But there has to be a rational explanation.'
'Oh there is,' Barnabas led her our of the cave and back to the shore. 'But a rational explanation is rather complex. We're dealing with a psycho-temporal entity manifesting through a critical mass of its sentient shell ... um. Magic sounds more fun. — James Goss

Every cell in your body, she said, was a quark, a sort of vibrating string. And through their thoughts and intentions, human beings had an almost magnetic power to attract similar strings out in the universe. As the number and intensity of these attracted strings build, a critical mass is reached and the want, whatever that may be, comes into being. Most of us are more powerful than we know. We are each in charge of our own vibrating energy. — Karen McQuestion

We must always refill and ensure there is a critical mass of leaders and activists committed to nonviolence and racial and economic justice who will keep seeding and building transforming movements. — Marian Wright Edelman

Certain barriers do require a critical mass of action at the right time to overcome the inertia that is greater than incremental change. — David Jaber

When the sum of our faith and humility is sufficient, it reaches a type of spiritual critical mass and hope is fostered and grows. A willing heart emerges which generates the ability for us to submit to the process of recovery. — Roger Stark

How dominating is appetite, how enveloping immediate experience! Even the philosophically minded among us capitulate, ultimately, to the narrowest sense of personal need. Political time moves at a snail's pace because it is only with nearly insurmountable difficulty that moral discomfort takes root in the best of people, forcing an imperative out of a complaint; so viscerally repugnant is it for a critical mass to find the prevailing system unbearable, much less prepare to take up arms against it. — Vivian Gornick

I'm friends with a lot of Brits, and they tell me when they're over here what a huge phenomenon 'The Wire' has become. Some things just attain critical mass after they're already dead and buried, and I don't know why it was the case with 'The Wire'. — James Ransone

Apple has always leveraged technologies that the PC industry has driven to critical mass - the bus structures, the graphics cards, the peripherals, the connection networks, things like that - so they're kind of in the PC ecosystem and kind of not. — Bill Gates

It takes an aeon to shift position, get comfortable, let alone
create a wave in this fishbowl full of glue.
- from the poem 'Critical Mass — Toby Fitch

Well how many troubles should equal a legitimate reason for self-mutilation? Ten? Twenty? One hundred? And how monumental must these troubles be? There's probably no critical mass beyond which cutting yourself would ever seem to most people like a reasonable choice. I cut because it did look that way to me. I cut because something had to give. I cut because the alternatives were worse. — Caroline Kettlewell

Another potent ideological force is to deprecate the individual and exalt the collectivity of society. For since any given rule implies majority acceptance, any ideological danger to that rule can only start from one or a few independently-thinking individuals. The new idea, much less the new critical idea, must needs begin as a small minority opinion; therefore, the State must nip the view in the bud by ridiculing any view that defies the opinions of the mass. "Listen only to your brothers" or "adjust to society" thus become ideological weapons for crushing individual dissent. By such measures, the masses will never learn of the nonexistence of their Emperor's clothes. — Murray N. Rothbard

Every time I feel that I really hit critical mass and I'm in the right place is when I feel like the director and I become a third thing, and that's the character. — Robert Downey Jr.

Once a critical mass of conversation is on Facebook, then it's hard to get conversation going elsewhere. What might have started out as a choice is no longer a choice after a network effect causes a phase change. — Jaron Lanier

The seeds of the Little War were planted in a restless summer during the mid-1960s, with sit-ins and student demonstrations as youth tested its strength. By the early 1970s over 75 percent of the people living on Earth were under 21 years of age. The population continued to climb - and with it the youth percentage.
In the 1980s the figure was 79.7 percent.
In the 1990s, 82.4 percent.
In the year 2000 - critical mass. — William F. Nolan

The conflict between corporations and activists is that of narcolepsy versus remembrance. The corporations have money, power, and influence. Our sole weapon is public outrage. Outrage blocked the Yuccan Dam, ousted Nixon, and in part, terminated the monstrosities in Vietnam. But outrage is unwieldy to manufacture and handle. First, you need scrutiny; second, widespread awareness; only when this reaches a critical mass does public outrage explode into being. Any stage may be sabotaged. The world's Alberto Grimaldis can fight scrutiny by burying truth in committees, dullness, and misinformation, or by intimidating the scrutinizers. They can extinguish awareness by dumbing down education, owning TV stations, paying 'guest fees' to leader writers, or just buying the media up. The media - and not just The Washington Post - is where democracies conduct their civil wars. — David Mitchell

For PayPal to work, we needed to attract a critical mass of at least a million users. Advertising was too ineffective to justify the cost. Prospective deals with big banks kept falling through. So we decided to pay people to sign up. We gave new customers $10 for joining, and we gave them $10 more every time they referred a friend. This got us hundreds of thousands of new customers and an exponential growth rate. — Peter Thiel

It is conventional to tell that constitutional story - of a republican failure ending in restoration - but to do so is to limit the significance of the 1640s to that single constitutional queston. There is much more to say, and to remember, about England's decade of civil war and revolution. Political and religious questions of fundamental importance were thrashed out before broad political audiences as activists and opportunists sought to mobilize support for their proposals. The resulting mass of contemporary argument is alluring to the historian since it lays bare the presumptions of a society very alient to our own. At the same time, by exposing those presumptions to sustained critical examination, this public discussion changed them. — Michael Braddick

There will be certain points of time when everything collides together and reaches critical mass around a new concept or a new thing that ends up being hugely relevant to a high percentage of people or businesses. But it's really really hard to predict those. I don't believe anyone can. — Marc Andreessen

All bureaucracies are the same. They drain the life out of the truly creative people and develop mindless paper-pushers as their critical mass. — Arthur C. Clarke

Professionalism merges the individual into patterns of total environment. Amateurism seeks the development of the total awareness of the individual and the critical awareness of the groundrules of society. The amateur can afford to lose. The professional tends to classify and specialise, to accept uncritically the groundrules of the environment. The groundrules provided by the mass response of his colleagues serve as a pervasive environment of which he is contentedly unaware. The 'expert' is the man who stays put. — Marshall McLuhan

It's people wanting to do something about global climate change. People fed up with the high price of gas. People tired of breathing dirty air. In Houston, Los Angeles, Bakersfield, and other cities. It's going to be a critical mass of people experiencing something. — Ed Begley Jr.

The amazing thing is that chaotic systems don't always stay chaotic," Ben said, leaning on the gate. "Sometimes they spontaneously reorganize themselves into an orderly structure."
"They suddenly become less chaotic?" I said, wishing that would happen at HiTek.
"No, that's the thing. They become more and more chaotic until they reach some sort of chaotic critical mass. When that happens, they spontaneously reorganize themselves at a higher equilibrium level. It's called self-organized criticality. — Connie Willis

People are stereotypes, they are caricaturized. It comes from both sides of the political aisle, it comes from the press. It's all about conflict, it's all about personality, and there are huge stakes in the policies that are being debated, and I think there's a hunger amongst a very significant, maybe even a critical mass of Americans, clustered on the left, right, and center, to have an adult conversation about how we're going to solve these problems ... but it's not for the fainthearted. — Hillary Clinton

A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection - not an invitation for hypnosis. — Umberto Eco

Fulfilling the four needs [spiritual, mental, physical, social] in an integrated way is like combining elements in chemistry. When we reach a "critical mass" of integration, we experience spontaneous combustion-an explosion of inner synergy that ignites the fire within and gives vision, passion, and a spirit of adventure to life. — Stephen Covey

Maybe we could think of science as being like a nuclear chain reaction in which people and ideas bounce off each other, and if critical mass is reached, a new field is formed. — Alvin E. Roth

Retailing is a unique destination. What you need is stronger critical mass. — John Simon

Complexity theory shows that great changes can emerge
from small actions. Change involves a belief in the possible, even the "impossible."
Moreover, social innovators don't follow a
linear pathway of change; there are ups and
downs, roller-coaster rides along cascades
of dynamic interactions, unexpected and
unanticipated divergences, tipping points
and critical mass momentum shifts. Indeed,
things often get worse before they get better
as systems change creates resistance to and
pushback against the new.
Traditional evaluation approaches — Michael Quinn Patton

What we want to do is raise the bare minimum amount that will give us a large enough microphone to effectively convey our message. Unfortunately, $20 million is critical mass in terms of running an effective campaign in New York. — David Brenner

I've learned the importance of changing people's minds at the grassroots level so that whoever does run will have a much better chance of encountering public opinion that reaches a critical mass and brings about a change not only in White House policies but in the Congress and in the state legislatures and all around the world. — Al Gore

My novels tend to come about from a fusion of two big ideas, creating a critical mass that then fissions, throwing off hundreds of other particles, riffs, tropes and characters. — Will Self

I think there certainly was a milestone in the '90s with regards to the Internet achieving critical mass. There were several magical factors that came together: the creation of HTML by Tim Berners-Lee, the drop in the price of communications, and all the PCs out there that you could put this software into. — Bill Gates

Silicon Valley has evolved a critical mass of engineers and venture capitalists and all the support structure - the law firms, the real estate, all that - that are all actually geared toward being accepting of startups. — Elon Musk

The gulf between what the press and many regular people believe Bitcoin is, and what a growing critical mass of technologists believe Bitcoin is, remains enormous. — Marc Andreessen