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• Specialise: To spend most of your time studying one particular subject or doing one type of business. Cambridge Dictionary
• Specialise: Concentrate on and become expert in a particular subject or skill.  Oxford Dictionary
• Specialise: To pursue some special line of study, work, etc.  Dictionary.com
• Expertise,  Mastery,  Skill,  Focus,  Work

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Specialisation is about focus …

• Concentrate on and become expert in a particular subject or skill. Oxford Dictionary
• The most eminent creators are consistently those who have immersed themselves utterly in their chosen field, have devoted their lives to it, amassed tremendous knowledge of it, and continually pushed themselves to the front of it. Geoff Colvin
• The master of a single trade can support a family. The master of seven trades cannot support himself. The wind is never for the sailor who knows not to what port he is bound. Og Mandino
• Gather in your resources, rally all your faculties, marshal all your energies, focus all your capacities upon mastery of at least one field of endeavor. John Haggai
• People hardly ever reach an elite level in more than a single domain of activity. Paul Fletovich
• Very narrow areas of expertise can be very productive. Develop your own profile. Develop your own niche. Leigh Steinberg
• We are all experts in our own little niches. Alex Trebek
• Give me a man who says, “This one thing I do,” and not, “These fifty things, I dabble in.” Dwight L. Moody
• Focus

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… in order to harness the power of concentration

• The jack-of-all-trades seldom is good at any. Concentrate all of your efforts on one definite chief aim. Napoleon Hill
• One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular. Tony Robbins
• It is those who concentrates on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. The great man or woman is the one who never steps outside his or her specialty or foolishly dissipates his or her individuality. Og Mandino
• Concentration is the factor that causes the great discrepancy between men and the results they achieve… the difference in their power of calling together all the rays of their ability and concentrating on one point. Orison Swett Marden
• Concentration

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Nowadays, there’s too much human knowledge to be an all rounder

• The range of human knowledge today is so great that we’re all specialists and the distance between specializations has become so great that anyone who seeks to wander freely between them almost has to forego closeness with the people around him. Robert M. Pirsig
• The ideal of an “all-round” education is out of date; it has been destroyed by the progress of knowledge. Bertrand Russell
• Knowledge

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Invest in knowledge in your chosen field

• Read an hour every day in your chosen field. This works out to about one book per week, 50 books per year, and will guarantee your success. Brian Tracy

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Expertise requires hard work and persistent practice, often over many years

• Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything. Clement Stone
• The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert—in anything. Daniel Levitin
• In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours. Malcolm Gladwell
• Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. . . . Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you can become expert. William Osler
• The expert at anything was once a beginner.
• Becoming an expert in almost anything requires literally years of work. People will do this only if they have some initial success, enjoy the work, and are supported by the social climate. Expertise is not solely a cognitive affair. Earl Hunt
• Hard work,  Perseverance

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Specialisation is the best way to achieve distinction

• Only by strict specialization can the scientific worker become fully conscious, for once and perhaps never again in his lifetime, that he has achieved something that will endure. A really definitive and good accomplishment is today always a specialized act. Max Weber
• Each man is capable of doing one thing well. If he attempts several, he will fail to achieve distinction in any. Plato
• All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else. Plato

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Some say it is better to specialise in a few things than to know many things superficially

• For the individual, too, it is better to know a few things well, or preferably one thing exceptionally well, than it is to know many things superficially. Richard Koch
• Jack of all trades, master of none
• It is he who specializes who survives and thrives.

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Others believe it is better to be a generalist than an expert or specialist

• Since we cannot know all there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything. Blaise Pascal
• It is entirely possible to be a jack of all trades, master of many. How? Specialists overestimate the time needed to “master” a skill and confuse “master” with “perfect.” Tim Ferriss
• In a world of dogmatic specialists, it’s the generalist who ends up running the show. Tim Ferriss
• Diversity of intellectual playgrounds breeds confidence instead of fear of the unknown. Tim Ferriss
• The specialist who imprisons himself in self-inflicted one-dimensionality — pursuing an impossible perfection — spends decades stagnant or making imperceptible incremental improvements while the curious generalist consistently measures improvement in quantum leaps. It is only the latter who enjoys the process of pursuing excellence. Tim Ferriss
• The more the world is specialized the more it will be run by generalists. Marcel Masse
• Intellectually curious men become generalists. Intellectually lazy men settle for being specialists. Mokokoma Mokhonoana
• A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. Robert A. Heinlein

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Maybe it’s best to find a balance between the two

• A mathematician who can only generalise is like a monkey who can only climb up a tree, and a mathematician who can only specialise is like a monkey who can only climb down a tree. In fact neither the up monkey nor the down monkey is a viable creature. A real monkey must find food and escape his enemies and so must be able to incessantly climb up and down. A real mathematician must be able to generalise and specialise. George Pólya
• Balance

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Whatever the truth, it’s important to look for ideas outside your area of expertise if you want to be creative

• To be creative, be an explorer and search for ideas outside your area. Looking for good ideas is like prospecting for gold.  If you look in the same old places, you’ll find tapped out veins.  Roger von Oech
• The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things: ancient history, nineteenth- century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later or six months, or six years down the road. But he has faith that it will happen. Carl Ally
• Creativity

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Some argue that becoming a specialist means knowing more and more about less and less …

• Specialized meaninglessness has come to be regarded, in certain circles, as a kind of hall-mark of true science. Aldous Huxley
• An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less. Nicholas M. Butler
• Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing. Michael Garrett Marino
• The expert knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

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… leading to the danger of ignorance outside your field

• To specialize is to brush one tooth. When a person specializes he channels all of his energies through one narrow conduit; he knows one thing extremely well and is ignorant of almost everything else. Tom Robbins
• Of course, I am interested, but I would not dare to talk about them. In talking about the impact of ideas in one field on ideas in another field, one is always apt to make a fool of oneself. In these days of specialization there are too few people who have such a deep understanding of two departments of our knowledge that they do not make fools of themselves in one or the other. Richard P. Feynman
• Scientists, especially when they leave the particular field in which they are specialized, are just as ordinary, pig-headed, and unreasonable as everybody else, and their unusually high intelligence only makes their prejudices all the more dangerous. Hans J. Eysenck
• Ignorance

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… and the danger of myopic thinking

• A specialist’s mind is a slave to his specialization. Mokokoma Mokhonoana

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Choosing one area of specialisation requires turning your back on many others

• It is a painful thing to say to oneself: by choosing one road I am turning my back on a thousand others. Everything is interesting; everything might be useful; everything attracts and charms a noble mind; but death is before us; mind and matter make their demands; willy-nilly we must submit and rest content as to things that time and wisdom deny us, with a glance of sympathy which is another act of our homage to the truth. Antonin Sertillanges
• In an age of specialization people are proud to be able to do one thing well, but if that is all they know about, they are missing out on much else life has to offer. Dennis Flanagan

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Some are cynical about just how much some specialists and experts know

• Expert: a man who makes three correct guesses consecutively. Laurence J. Peter
• An expert is somebody who is more than 50 miles from home, has no responsibility for implementing the advice he gives, and shows slides. Edwin Meese III quotes
• An expert is an ordinary fella away from home. Bum Phillips

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Others question the judgement and common sense of specialists

• An expert is a person who avoids small error as he sweeps on to the grand fallacy. Benjamin Stolberg
• Experts often possess more data than judgment. Colin Powell
• Expert: Someone who brings confusion to simplicity. Gregory Nunn
• No man can be a pure specialist without being in the strict sense an idiot. George Bernard Shaw
• There is nothing so stupid as an educated man, if you get him off the thing he was educated in. Will Rogers
• Common sense

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As an expert, it’s especially important to not stop thinking and to remain open to new possibilities

• An expert is a man who has stopped thinking – he knows! Frank Lloyd Wright
• Incestuous, homogeneous fiefdoms of self-proclaimed expertise are always rank-closing and mutually self- defending, above all else. Glenn Greenwald
• You must continue to gain expertise, but avoid thinking like an expert. Denis Waitley
• In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few. Shunryu Suzuki
• Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. Bertrand Russell

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Even as an expert, it’s crucial to keep learning

• Never become so much of an expert that you stop gaining expertise. View life as a continuous learning experience. Denis Waitley
• Education is a lifelong experience. Experience is a lifelong education. Education plus experience equals expertise. Michael Bugeja
• Learning

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Don’t always believe an expert who says it can’t be done

• If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can’t be done. Peter Ustinov
• Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it.  Robert Heinlein

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• Sometimes it takes an expert to point out the obvious. Scott Allen
• An expert knows all the answers — if you ask the right questions.
• A genuine expert can always foretell a thing that is 500 years away easier than he can a thing that’s only 500 seconds off. Mark Twain
• It is, after all, the responsibility of the expert to operate the familiar and that of the leader to transcend it.  Henry Kissinger
• My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what’s really going on to be scared. J. Plauger
• The history of learning amounts to a history of specialization. Beryl Smalley
• Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom. John Kenneth Galbraith
• But while I accept specialization in the practice, I reject it utterly in the theory of’science. Claude Bernard
• An age of extreme and unparalleled specialisation, such as that in which we live, needs above all the steadying influence of a firm grasp on principles. Detail itself is arid and tedious; it is moreover largely unintelligible in the absence of explanatory principle. Ronald Aylmer Fisher
• When we become expert in something, our tastes grow more esoteric and complex. Malcolm Gladwell

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• A lot of fellows nowadays have a B. A., M. D., or Ph. D. Unfortunately, they don’t have a J. O. B. Fats Domino
• Consultants are people who borrow your watch and tell you what time it is, and then walk off with the watch.  Robert  Townsend
• Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations. Faith Baldwin
• What I need is a lawyer who specializes in the law of the jungle.  Ashleigh Brilliant

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