Top 100 Quotes About Introversion
#1. Introversion, at least if extreme, is a sign of mental and spiritual immaturity.
Pearl S. Buck
#2. 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
#3. The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.
B.F. Skinner
#4. The bias against introversion leads to a colossal waste of talent, energy, and happiness.
Susan Cain
#5. We cannot find freedom in our introversion until we embrace our primary identities as sons and daughters of God.
Adam S. McHugh
#6. QUIET IS MIGHT.
SOLITUDE IS STRENGTH.
INTROVERSION IS POWER.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#7. Living on the water took away the boundaries created by land and custom and introversion. Without fences and driveways, the water provided a constant thread of connection and dependency.
Lily Graham
#8. Introverts' wounds usually begin in childhood. Our families of origin convey to us messages about introversion, which set us on a path of either self-acceptance or self-criticism.
Adam S. McHugh
#9. 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
#10. The results have consistently suggested that introversion and extroversion, like other major personality traits such as agreeableness and conscientiousness, are about 40 to 50 percent heritable.
Susan Cain
#11. My extroversion is a way of managing my introversion.
Carrie Fisher
#12. 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
#13. Don't think of introversion as something that needs to be cured.
Susan Cain
#14. Shyness is inherently uncomfortable; introversion is not. The traits do overlap, though psychologists debate to what degree.
Susan Cain
#15. Introversion, when embraced, is a wellspring of riches. It took me years to acknowledge this simple reality, to claim my home, and to value all it offers.
Laurie Helgoe
#16. Is it better to part with your introversion or to accept a diagnosis that allows you to have it as long as you see it as a problem? The introverted child's plea for solitude seems to be either unheeded or treated.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#17. Shyness is the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is a preference for environments that are not overstimulating. Shyness is inherently painful; introversion is not.
Susan Cain
#18. He considered music a liberating force: it liberated him from loneliness, introversion, the dust of the library; it opened the door of his body and allowed his soul to step out into the world and make friends.
Milan Kundera
#19. Introverts prefer introversion; we tend to gain energy by reflecting and expend energy when interacting. Extroverts have the opposite preference; they tend to gain energy by interacting and expend energy while reflecting.
Laurie Helgoe
#20. A widely held, but rarely articulated, belief in our society is that the ideal self is bold, alpha, gregarious. Introversion is viewed somewhere between disappointment and pathology.
Susan Cain
#21. I'm caught somewhere between introversion and extroversion. Performance is natural to me, joyful, but it is also exhausting. I can feed on it, but the expense is high, too, like being a carnivore: I have to chase down my meals.
Nick Harkaway
#22. The young men were born with knives in their brain, a tendency to introversion, self-dissection, anatomizing of motives.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#23. Introversion and shyness are not synonymous. Introversion is a natural personality trait where we go inside ourselves to process our experiences. Shyness, on the other hand, is a condition marked by fear or extreme anxiety in social situations.
Adam S. McHugh
#24. 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
#25. At the university level, introversion predicts academic performance better than cognitive ability.
Susan Cain
#26. Willed introversion, in fact, is one of the classic implements of creative genius and can be employed as a deliberate device.
Joseph Campbell
#27. I am very troubled by the tendency to define introverts by what they lack. Introversion is a preference, not a fallback plan.
Laurie Helgoe
#28. It is impossible to fully and fairly understand introversion without looking inside. We aren't just going away, we're going toward something.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#29. Our challenge as introverts is to adopt the attitude, based on the introversion assumption, that your need to retreat requires no explanation - it is self-evident.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#30. They focused on the so-called Big Five traits: Introversion-Extroversion; Agreeableness; Openness to Experience; Conscientiousness; and Emotional Stability.
Susan Cain
#31. The only problem with seeing people you know is that they know you.
Brent Runyon
#32. We do not require company. In varying degrees, it bores us, drains us, makes our eyes glaze over. Overcomes us like a steamroller. Of course, the rest of the world doesn't understand.
Anneli Rufus
#33. I'll be honest with you. I'm a little bit of a loner. It's been a big part of my maturing process to learn to allow people to support me. I tend to be very self-reliant and private. And I have this history of wanting to work things out on my own and protect people from what's going on with me.
Kerry Washington
#34. For the introvert, conversation can be a very limited forum for self-expression. When a song moves you, a writer "gets" you, or a theory enlightens you - you and its creator are connecting in a realm beyond sight or speech.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#36. I believed that if I had the whole story, if I had the opportunity to really know the person I was sitting with, there would be nobody I could not love.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#37. A philosophy that cannot be lived is no philosophy at all.
Philip Zaleski
#38. How difficult it is to find solitude in a world that constantly demands your attention.
Joyce Rachelle
#39. If I were to envy any persons on this planet, it would be mountain hermits. You often hear old platitudes such as, 'Speak out. Be heard.' On the contrary, a breath of fresh air would be something like: 'Silence, think for at least 15 minutes, and then maybe speak out.
Criss Jami
#40. Many introverts don't feel as if they know enough about a subject until they know almost everything.
Marti Olsen Laney
#42. Sitting in the brightly lit library, surrounded by books, in total silence, that was ma personal zenith.
Irvine Welsh
#43. When we take into consideration the needs of both ourselves and others, we communicate honestly, compassionately and effectively.
Aletheia Luna
#44. The Socially Accessible introvert looks like an extrovert on the outside and sees extroversion as a bar that he or she can never quite reach. These individuals are often very successful in social arenas, but fault themselves for not having more fun.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#45. One of the teens I worked with told me about how she loves to take tests, because it is quiet and everyone is occupying their own space.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#46. If you retreat in response to desire rather than deprivation, the deprivation may never come.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#47. It is, in truth, our responsibility to understand our needs and to adjust our perceptions,thoughts, decisions, behaviors, and environments to reflect these needs. We can't force others to change, but we can change ourselves.
Aletheia Luna
#48. Let's clear one thing up: Introverts do not hate small talk because we dislike people. We hate small talk because we hate the barrier it creates between people.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#49. Introverts tend to avoid small talk. We'd rather talk about something meaningful than fill the air with chatter just to hear ourselves make noise.
Jenn Granneman
#50. The walls of books around him, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters.
Ross Macdonald
#51. One of the ways I know I shouldn't be online is when I'm looking to get something that I already have in abundance as a child of God.
Sammy Rhodes
#52. Jacob opened the refrigerator and stared into it vacantly, with the false purposefulness that lingers for a few moments when a person of a solitary nature is released from the company of a strong personality.
Caleb Crain
#53. When introverts sense invasion, we instinctively shut down to protect our inner resources. But in doing so, we lose access to ourselves. From this defensive position, we may feel that our only options are to practice extroversion, go underground, or go crazy.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#54. Osborn was a founding partner of the advertising agency Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn (BBDO), but it was as an author that he really made his mark, beginning with the day in 1938 that a magazine editor invited him to lunch and asked what his hobby was. "Imagination," replied Osborn.
Susan Cain
#55. Companionship is a foreign concept to some people. They fear it as much as the majority of people fear loneliness.
Criss Jami
#56. For introverts, the best associations start with ideas. If you don't feel a part of your neighborhood association or the happy hour regulars after work, don't force it. The community that surrounds you may not be your community.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#57. Introverts don't like small talk conversation, but they typically don't mind writing. The more people can "see" you on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or a blog, the more they will feel like they know you, even though you don't have one-on-one interaction with them.
Thom S. Rainer
#58. My roommate knocks on my door and I try not to move.
My heart is beating fast.
He knocks again and then leaves.
I win.
This is but one of the many victories I have exampled as a human among humans.
I have no equals.
My strength is unmatched.
Sam Pink
#59. Potential was a red herring to plot a life of wandering curiosity.
Nicholas Dawidoff
#60. And tonight - Geryon? You okay?
Yes fine, I'm listening. Tonight - ?
Why do you have your jacket over your head?
...
Can't hear you Geryon. The jacket shifted. Geryon peered out. I said sometimes
I need a little privacy.
Anne Carson
#61. We have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionally.
Susan Cain
#62. Miles saw him as a grief-stricken recluse, hiding from the world while he mourned his dead wife. Maybe that was the way everyone saw him. But Annie's death had not created the condition; it had merely emphasized it.
Terry Brooks
#63. Introverts live in two worlds: We visit the world of people, but solitude and the inner world will always be our home.
Jenn Granneman
#64. I am rarely bored alone; I am often bored in groups and crowds.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#65. It takes an extrovert to bring out my upbeat side. If it were up to me, everyone would probably just sit around talking about mysteries of the universe.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#66. We know we only have so much energy for reaching out; if we're going to invest, we want it to be good.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#67. Being under my own roof, and my personality not invaded by others makes a lot of difference in my outlook on life and everything. Oh, to be once more alone in a house!
Zora Neale Hurston
#68. All I wanted was to be left alone. They abhor a vacuum, other people. You find a quiet corner where you can hunker down in peace, and the next minute there they are, crowding around you in their party hats, tooting their paper whistles in your face and insisting you get up and join in the knees-up.
John Banville
#69. Isn't it refreshing to know that what comes perfectly natural for you is your greatest strength? Your power is in your nature. You may not think it's a big deal that you can spend hours immersed in something that interests you - alone - but the extrovert next door has no idea how you do it.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#70. His retreat into himself is not a final renunciation of the world, but a search for quietude, where alone it is possible for him to make his contribution to the life of the community.
C. G. Jung
#71. Introverts paradoxically pull away from culture and create culture.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#72. Some animals carry their shelter wherever they go. Some humans are just the same.
Susan Cain
#73. I'm one of those introverts with well-honed social skills, and I have even danced on the occasional table, but I have felt sheer panic when my exhaustion precedes my exit. It's like the Cinderella story with a twist: I want to get out of there and into my duds before midnight - or ten, or eight.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#74. My Solitude is my Treasure, the best thing I have. I hesitate to go out. If you opened the little gate, I would not hop away - but oh how I sing in my gold cage.
A.S. Byatt
#75. I talk with many Shadow Dwellers who are mystified by the fact that chatty workers are rarely reprimanded. Sit and gossip and you are fun; close the door (if you have one) and you are antisocial.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#76. Telling an introvert to go to a party is like telling a saint to go to Hell.
Criss Jami
#77. Regardless of how dead we feel in a crowd, we cling to the uniquely American assumption that associating is good and necessary and solitude is suspect.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#78. What we share as introverts is the love of ideas and the desire to explore them with minimal interruption. We want and need input, but we'd rather get it through reading, research, and rich conversation than through unfiltered talk.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#79. She thought not so much of what had happened as of how she could describe it.
E. M. Forster
#80. During relaxation we drop our guard. Particularly in conversation. Relaxed conversation leads to openness. And in openness we often reveal what should never be revealed.
Edward Carey
#81. For I see not what there is desirable in publick esteeme, were I able to acquire & maintaine it. It would perhaps increase my acquaintance, the thing which I chiefly study to decline.
Isaac Newton
#82. Introverts don't see life as one big cocktail party. We're content with just a few meaningful relationships.
Jenn Granneman
#83. Ultimately I found my community by pursuing what I loved: writing, acting, art, coffeehouses.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#85. In other people's company I felt I was dull, gloomy, unwelcome, at once bored and boring ...
Andre Gide
#86. Introvert integrity means going the distance for what we love: moving from apology to acceptance, from acceptance to acknowledgement, and from acknowledgment to activism.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#87. Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass and it was all semicolons and parentheses.
George Eliot
#88. A good rule of thumb is that any environment that consistently leaves you feeling bad about who you are is the wrong environment.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#89. Prolonged travel in the alternate world of books can also make a reader more prone to fantasy thinking and estranged from his or her "real" life.
Maureen Corrigan
#90. Superficially it may appear that I am more interested in books than in people; but I think it nearer the mark to say that I am more interested in people as they are revealed to me in books than as they reveal themselves to me in daily contact.
Vincent Starrett
#91. I prefer to interact with people one-on-one. Any more than that, and the dynamic becomes competitive.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#92. Recognition is what you feel when a friend sums up exactly what you're feeling, when an author gives you the right words, when someone "gets" you.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#93. Most people in politics draw energy from backslapping and shaking hands and all that. I draw energy from discussing ideas.
Al Gore
#94. As an introvert, you crave intimate moments and deep connections--and those usually aren't found in a crowd.
Jenn Granneman
#95. I heard, for the first time - nothing. I danced and did somersaults, lay down in a bed of grass, felt the breeze.
And for the first time, I heard my heart, and I knew who I was.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#96. Not only has volume been ratcheted up but expectations have, too. Quiet success
painting a picture, writing a poem, writing an algorithm
is all well and good, but if you haven't become famous doing it, then did it really matter?
Sophia Dembling
#97. I asked him for a cigarette and he obliged, lighting it for me without a word, without meeting my eye. The quiet ones do this. They exert control by giving nothing out, and it's this blankness that makes them unpredictable, as dangerous as the loud ones are obvious.
Vu Tran
#98. Though some of us like to get on stage, many introverts are content to put on their invisibility cloaks and watch. But well-meaning extroverts will have none of that! They need to draw us out, invite us to participate - repeatedly - and question why we are so depressed as to not want to join.
Laurie A. Helgoe
#99. If personal space is vital to creativity, so is freedom from "peer pressure".
Susan Cain
#100. A long mission was ahead of them, and no one wanted to get on anyone else's nerves with unnecessary chatter.
Allen Steele
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