Introversion Quotes

[On Jung's theory of psychological types:] My mother, Katharine C. Briggs, introduced it into our family and made it a part of our lives. She and I waited a long time for someone to devise an instrument that would reflect not only one's preference for extraversion or introversion but one's preferred kind of perception and judgment as well. In the summer of 1942 we undertook to do it ourselves.

My extroversion is a way of managing my introversion.

Quiet is might. Solitude is strength. Introversion is power.

Don't think of introversion as something that needs to be cured.

Whatever kind of introvert you are, some people will find you 'too much' in some ways and 'not enough' in others.

The only problem with seeing people you know is that they know you.

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.

Telling an introvert to go to a party is like telling a saint to go to Hell.

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.

To a greater or lesser extent there goes on in every person a struggle between two forces: the longing for privacy and the urge to go places: the introversion, interest directed within oneself toward one's own inner life of vigorous thought and fancy; and extroversion, interest directed outward, toward the external world of people and tangible values.

In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent.

Introversion, at least if extreme, is a sign of mental and spiritual immaturity.

We don’t ask why God chose as his prophet a stutterer with a public speaking phobia. But we should. The book of Exodus is short on explication, but its stories suggest that introversion plays yin to the yang of extroversion; that the medium is not always the message; and that people followed Moses because his words were thoughtful, not because he spoke them well.

The physical basis for sociopathy is approximately 50 percent inheritable, which sounds more dramatic than it probably is, because most personality characteristics that psychologists test for and study the genetics of are about 50 percent inheritable. Introversion, extroversion, it turns out that they're about 50 percent inheritable, which means that somehow sociopathy is physical, it's organic.

I'm okay, you're okay - in small doses.

The young men were born with knives in their brain, a tendency to introversion, self-dissection, anatomizing of motives.

Most people in politics draw energy from backslapping and shaking hands and all that. I draw energy from discussing ideas.

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.

The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.

Shyness is inherently uncomfortable; introversion is not. The traits do overlap, though psychologists debate to what degree.

It's as if they have thinner boundaries separating them from other people's emotions and from the tragedies and cruelties of the world.

Introversion - along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness - is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology.

Introverts living under the Extroversion Ideal are like women in a man's world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are.

Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we've turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.

The end of the world: the wholesale internal introversion upon itself of the noosphere, which has simultaneously reached the uttermost limit of its complexity and its centrality . . . the overthrow of equilibrium, detaching the mind, furfilled at last, from its material matrix, so that it will henceforth rest with all its weight on God-Omega . . . critical point simultaneously of emergence and emersion, of maturation and evasion.

Companionship is a foreign concept to some people. They fear it as much as the majority of people fear loneliness.

Introversion- along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness- is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living in the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man's world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we've turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.

We have a two-tier class system when it comes to personality style. To devalue introversion is a waste of talent, energy and happiness.

When an introvert cares about someone, she also wants contact, not so much to keep up with the events of the other person's life, but to keep up with what's inside: the evolution of ideas, values, thoughts, and feelings.

Introverts .. may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas.

Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions.

I am rarely bored alone; I am often bored in groups and crowds.

...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.

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.

The bias against introversion leads to a colossal waste of talent, energy, and happiness.

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.

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.

After an hour or two of being socially on, we introverts need to turn off and recharge ... This isn't antisocial. It isn't a sign of depression.

For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating.

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.

When you're socially awkward, you're isolated more than usual, and when you're isolated more than usual, your creativity is less compromised by what has already been said and done. All your hope in life starts to depend on your craft, so you try to perfect it. One reason I stay isolated more than the average person is to keep my creativity as fierce as possible. Being the odd one out may have its temporary disadvantages, but more importantly, it has its permanent advantages.

Extroverts want us to have fun, because they assume we want what they want. And sometimes we do. But "fun" itself is a "bright" word, the kind of word that comes with flashing lights and an exclamation point! One of Merriam-Webster's definitions of "fun" is "violent or excited activity or argument." The very word makes me want to sit in a dimly lit room with lots of pillows-by myself.

Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you're supposed to. Stay home on New Year's Eve if that's what makes you happy. Skip the committee meeting. Cross the street to avoid making aimless chitchat with random acquaintances. Read. Cook. Run. Write a story. Make a deal with yourself that you'll attend a set number of social events in exchange for not feeling guilty when you beg off.

Cross the street to avoid making aimless chitchat with random acquaintances.