Top 100 Susan Cain Quotes
#1. The next time you see a person with a composed face and a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might, that is, be deploying the power of quiet.
Susan Cain
#2. Everyone shines, given the right lighting.
Susan Cain
#3. Flow is an optimal state in which you feel totally engaged in an activity ... In a state of flow, you're neither bored nor anxious, and you don't question your own adequacy. Hours pass without your noticing.
Susan Cain
#4. What if you love knowledge for its own sake, not necessarily as a blueprint to action? What if you wish there were more, not fewer reflective types in the world?
Susan Cain
#5. I also believe that introversion is my greatest strength. I have such a strong inner life that I'm never bored and only occasionally lonely. No matter what mayhem is happening around me, I know I can always turn inward.
Susan Cain
#6. You will find this hard to believe, but I've never laughed as much as I did when I was a corporate lawyer. When you're working 16 hours a day for months at a time, you get punchy. Everything and everyone seems hilarious.
Susan Cain
#7. Solitude is one of our great superpowers ... Solitude is the key to being able to make effective decisions and then having the courage of convictions to stand behind those decisions.
Susan Cain
#8. All talking is selling and all selling involves talking,
Susan Cain
#9. Purification and redemption are such recurrent themes in ritual because there is a clear and ubiquitous need for them: we all do regrettable things as a result of our own circumstances, and new rituals are frequently invented in response to new circumstances.
Susan Cain
#10. Conversely, high-reactive children may be more likely to develop into artists and writers and scientists and thinkers because their aversion to novelty causes them to spend time inside the familiar - and intellectually fertile - environment of their own heads.
Susan Cain
#11. The bias against introversion leads to a colossal waste of talent, energy, and happiness.
Susan Cain
#12. [Introverts,] the world needs you and it needs the things you carry. So I wish you the best of all possible journeys and the courage to speak softly.
Susan Cain
#13. We tend to forget that there's nothing sacrosanct about learning in large group classrooms, and that we organize students this way not because it's the best way to learn but because it's cost-efficient,
Susan Cain
#14. Another study, of 38,000 knowledge workers across different sectors, found that the simple act of being interrupted is one of the biggest barriers to productivity. Even multitasking, that prized feat of modern-day office warriors, turns out to be a myth.
Susan Cain
#15. Scores of studies have shown that venting doesn't soothe anger; it fuels it.
Susan Cain
#16. One honest relationship can be more productive than fistfuls of business cards.
Susan Cain
#17. Students take ownership of their education when they learn from one another
Susan Cain
#18. Why are some people talkative while others measure their words? Why
Susan Cain
#19. Our culture rightly admires risk-takers, but we need our 'heed-takers' more than ever.
Susan Cain
#20. It's not that I'm so smart," said Einstein, who was a consummate introvert. "It's that I stay with problems longer.
Susan Cain
#21. What is the inner behavior of people whose most visible feature is that when you take them to a party they aren't very pleased about it?
Susan Cain
#22. Solitude is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place.
Susan Cain
#23. One genuine new relationship is worth a fistful of business cards.
Susan Cain
#24. we revere our founding fathers precisely because they were loudmouths on the subject of freedom: Give me liberty or give me death!
Susan Cain
#25. People who tend to [suppress their negative emotions] regularly," concludes Grob, "might start to see the world in a more negative light.
Susan Cain
#26. Any time people come together in a meeting, we're not necessarily getting the best ideas; we're just getting the ideas of the best talkers.
Susan Cain
#27. Introverts feel "just right" with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like meeting new people, skiing slippery slopes, and cranking up the stereo.
Susan Cain
#28. It's also vital to recognize that many people - especially introverts like Steve Wozniak - need extra quiet and privacy in order to do their best work.
Susan Cain
#29. Temperament refers to inborn, biologically based behavioral and emotional patterns that are observable in infancy and early childhood; personality is the complex brew that emerges after cultural influence and personal experience are thrown into the mix.
Susan Cain
#30. Aggression - Emily is uncomfortable with anger - but
Susan Cain
#31. Introverts just just don't buzz as easily.
Susan Cain
#32. For many introverts like David, adolescence is the great stumbling place, the dark and tangled thicket of low self-esteem and social unease. In middle and high school, the main currency is vivacity and gregariousness; attributes like depth and sensitivity don't count for much.
Susan Cain
#33. I'm continually amazed by how many people who appear to be extroverts are actually introverts.
Susan Cain
#34. The highly sensitive tend to be philosophical or spiritual in their orientation, rather than materialistic or hedonistic. They dislike small talk. They
Susan Cain
#35. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation.
Susan Cain
#36. Brainstorming had four rules: 1. Don't judge or criticize ideas. 2. Be freewheeling. The wilder the idea, the better. 3. Go for quantity. The more ideas you have, the better. 4. Build on the ideas of fellow group members.
Susan Cain
#37. Many people believe that introversion is about being antisocial, and that's really a misperception. Because actually it's just that introverts are differently social. So they would prefer to have a glass of wine with a close friend as opposed to going to a loud party full of strangers.
Susan Cain
#38. Evidence from science suggests that business people must be insane to use brainstorming groups,
Susan Cain
#39. Some animals carry their shelter wherever they go. Some humans are just the same.
Susan Cain
#40. But the same receptivity to experience that can make life difficult for the highly sensitive also builds their consciences. Aron tells of one sensitive teen who persuaded his mother to feed a homeless person he'd met in the park, and of another eight-year-old who cried
Susan Cain
#42. I was the nicest person you'd ever want to know," Alex recalls, "but the world wasn't that way. The problem was that if you were just a nice person, you'd get crushed. I refused to live a life where people could do that stuff to me.
Susan Cain
#43. We like to think that we value individuality, but all too often we admire one type of individual - the
Susan Cain
#44. (Never mind that the assistants were likely interchangeable, while Michelangelo was not.)
Susan Cain
#45. By the time I was old enough to figure out that I was simply introverted, it was a part of my being, the assumption that there is something inherently wrong with me. I wish I could find that little vestige of doubt and remove it.
Susan Cain
#46. The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it's a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk. Use your natural powers
of persistence, concentration, and insight
to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems. make art, think deeply.
Susan Cain
#47. All personality traits have their good side and their bad side. But for a long time, we've seen introversion only through its negative side and extroversion mostly through its positive side.
Susan Cain
#48. Don't think of introversion as something that needs to be cured.
Susan Cain
#49. Solitude matters, and for some people, it's the air they breathe
Susan Cain
#50. I'm not saying abolish group work - I think there's a time and a place for people to come together and exchange ideas, but let's restore the respect we once had for solitude. And we need to be much more mindful of the way we come together.
Susan Cain
#51. It's also important for companies to groom listeners
Susan Cain
#52. Because conflict-avoidant Emily would never "bite" or even hiss unless Greg had done something truly horrible, on some level she processes his bite to mean that she's terribly guilty - of something, anything, who knows what?
Susan Cain
#53. Shyness is inherently uncomfortable; introversion is not. The traits do overlap, though psychologists debate to what degree.
Susan Cain
#54. What's so magical about solitude? In many fields, it's only when you're alone that you can engage in deliberate practice. This is the key to exceptional achievement.
Susan Cain
#55. There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.
Susan Cain
#56. I want to change the world in my own way. So I do stuff that's artificial. I don't really like being the guest at someone else's party, because then I have to be entertaining. But I'll host parties because it puts you at the center of things without actually being a social person.
Susan Cain
#57. I'm insatiably curious about human nature.
Susan Cain
#58. Probably the most common - and damaging - misunderstanding about personality type is that introverts are antisocial and extroverts are pro-social.
Susan Cain
#59. To ask whether it's nature or nurture, says Kagan, is like asking whether a blizzard is caused by temperature or humidity. It's the intricate interaction between the two that makes us who we are.
Susan Cain
#60. If this is true - if solitude is an important key to creativity - then we might all want to develop a taste for it. We'd want to teach our kids to work independently.
Susan Cain
#61. She had trouble finding the sacred in the everyday; it seemed to be there only when she withdrew from the world.
Susan Cain
#62. Use your natural powers - of persistence, concentration, and insight - to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems, make art, and think deeply
Susan Cain
#63. Evangelical churches often make extroversion a prerequisite for leadership, sometimes explicitly. "The priest must be ... an extrovert who enthusiastically engages members and newcomers, a team player," reads an ad for a position as associate rector of a 1,400-member parish.
Susan Cain
#64. Speak with conviction. Even if you believe something only fifty-five percent, say it as if you believe it a hundred percent.
Susan Cain
#65. Ericsson says that it takes approximately ten thousand hours of Deliberate Practice to gain true expertise, so it helps to start young.
Susan Cain
#66. I realize it's not true that I'm no longer shy; I've just learned to talk myself down from the ledge
Susan Cain
#67. In our society, the ideal self is bold, gregarious, and comfortable in the spotlight. We like to think that we value individuality, but mostly we admire the type of individual who's comfortable 'putting himself out there.'
Susan Cain
#68. Some of the world's most talented people are introverts. Without them we wouldn't have the Apple computer, the theory of relativity or Van Gogh's sunflowers.
Susan Cain
#69. To some extent, we've always had an admiration for extroversion in our culture. But the extrovert ideal really came to play at the turn of the 20th century when we had the rise of big business.
Susan Cain
#70. Naked lions are just as dangerous as elegantly dressed ones
Susan Cain
#71. A reward-sensitive person is highly motivated to seek rewards - from a promotion to a lottery jackpot to an enjoyable evening out with friends. Reward sensitivity motivates us to pursue goals like sex and money, social status and influence.
Susan Cain
#72. When you practice deliberately, you identify the tasks or knowledge that are just out of your reach, strive to upgrade your performance, monitor your progress, and revise accordingly.
Susan Cain
#74. Prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet - seems
Susan Cain
#75. Unleashing a passion can transform a life ...
Susan Cain
#76. Evangelicalism has taken the Extrovert Ideal to its logical extreme ... If you don't love Jesus out loud, then it must not be real love. It's not enough to forge your own spiritual connection to the divine; it must be displayed publicly.
Susan Cain
#77. We know from myths and fairy tales that there are many different kinds of powers in this world. One child is given a light saber, another a wizard's education. The trick is not to amass all the different kinds of power, but to use well the kind you've been granted.
Susan Cain
#78. In most job interviews, people say they are looking for people skills and emotional intelligence. That's reasonable, but the question is, how do you define what that looks like?
Susan Cain
#79. There's only one problem with Osborn's breakthrough idea: group brainstorming doesn't actually work
Susan Cain
#80. The pressure to entertain, to sell ourselves, and never to be visibly anxious keeps ratcheting up.
Susan Cain
#81. As a parent, if give yourself what you need, your children will watch you doing that and will give themselves what they need.
Susan Cain
#82. Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you're supposed to.
Susan Cain
#83. He also suffered from a certain amount of what he calls "reputational confusion," in which he became known for being over-the-top effervescent, and the reputation fed on itself. This was the persona that others knew, so it was the persona he felt obliged to serve up.
Susan Cain
#84. What's interesting is relative levels of introversion tend to stay the same. If you went back to your reunion from school, you would probably find that if you ranked everyone in your class into terms of levels of introversion and extroversion you'd still be the same rank.
Susan Cain
#85. Introverts are "geared to inspect" and extroverts "geared to respond.
Susan Cain
#86. not everyone aspires to be a leader in the conventional sense of the word - that
Susan Cain
#87. A few things introverts are not: The word introvert is not a synonym for hermit or misanthrope. Introverts can be these things, but most are perfectly friendly.
Susan Cain
#88. Women were also urged to work on a mysterious quality called 'fascination.' Coming of age in the 1920's was a competitive business ...
Susan Cain
#89. LET YOUR FACE REFLECT CONFIDENCE, NOT WORRY! IT'S THE 'LOOK' OF YOU BY WHICH YOU ARE JUDGED MOST OFTEN.
Susan Cain
#90. It's as if they have thinner boundaries separating them from other people's emotions and from the tragedies and cruelties of the world.
Susan Cain
#91. In our culture, snails are not considered valiant animals - we are constantly exhorting people to "come out of their shells" - but there's a lot to be said for taking your home with you wherever you go.
Susan Cain
#92. Many introverts feel there's something wrong with them, and try to pass as extroverts. But whenever you try to pass as something you're not, you lose a part of yourself along the way. You especially lose a sense of how to spend your time.
Susan Cain
#93. It takes approximately ten thousand hours of Deliberate Practice to gain true expertise,
Susan Cain
#94. Try to think of happy things," he says, caressing my forehead. I stare at the ceiling, tears welling. What happy things? Who could be happy in a world of podiums and microphones? "There are a billion people in China who don't give a rat's ass about your speech," Ken offers sympathetically.
Susan Cain
#95. Still, there's a limit to how much we can control our self-presentation. This is partly because of a phenomenon called behavioral leakage, in which our true selves seep out via unconscious body language:
Susan Cain
#96. The word introvert is not a synonym for hermit or misanthrope.
Susan Cain
#97. We live with a value system that I call the Extrovert Ideal - the omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight.
Susan Cain
#98. In a way, education by its nature favours the extrovert because you are taking kids and putting them into a big classroom, which is automatically going to be a high-stimulation environment. Probably the best way of teaching in general is one on one, but that's not something everyone can afford.
Susan Cain
#99. Bolder animals sally forth, swallowed regularly by those farther up the food chain but surviving when food is scarce and they need to assume more risk.
Susan Cain
#100. Nobody is going to care who won or lost any election when the earth is uninhabitable.
Susan Cain
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