I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural awkwardness.
Quotations about:
introvert
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I am an adherent of the ideal of democracy, although I know well the weaknesses of the democratic form of government. Social equality and economic protection of the individual have always seemed to me the important communal aims of the state. Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice keeps me from feeling isolated.
[Ich bekenne mich zum Ideal der Demokratie, trotzdem mir die Nachteile demokratischer Staatsform wohlbekannt sind. Sozialer Ausgleich und wirtschaftlicher Schutz des Individuums erschienen mir stets als wichtige Ziele der staatlichen Gemeinschaft. ch bin zwar im täglichen Leben ein typischer Einspänner, aber das Bewusstsein, der unsichtbaren Gemeinschaft derjenigen anzugehören, die nach Wahrheit, Schönheit und Gerechtigkeit streben, hat das Gefühl der Vereinsamung nicht aufkommen lassen.]
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
“My Credo Mein Glaubensbekenntnis],” recording for the German League of Human Rights (Autumn 1932)
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Einstein crafted and recrafted his credo multiple times in this period, and specifics are often muddled by differing translations and by his reuse of certain phrases in later writing.
People empty me. I have to get away to refill.
Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) German-American author, poet
Journal entry (21 Sep 1991), The Captain is Out to Lunch (1998)
It can be difficult to be an introvert in church, especially if you happen to be the pastor. Liking to be alone can be interpreted as a judgment on other people’s company. Liking to be quiet can be construed as aloofness. There is so much emphasis on community in most congregations that anyone who does not participate risks being labeled a loner.
Barbara Brown Taylor (b. 1951) American minister, academic, author
An Altar in the World, ch. 7 (2009)
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I don’t hate people, I just feel better when they aren’t around.
Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) German-American author, poet
Barfly (1987)
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From the movie screenplay by Bukowski.
This is the way the phrase is usually quoted, but it's actually a series of lines when Henry (a character standing in for Bukowski himself) first meets Wanda.
WANDA: I can't stand people. I hate them.
HENRY: Yeah?
WANDA: You hate them?
HENRY: No, but I seem to feel better when they're not around.
Bukowski is actually in the scene as the barfly closest to Wanda before Henry moves next to her. Video clip.
There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it.
May Sarton (1912-1995) Belgian-American poet, novelist, memoirist [pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton]
Journal of a Solitude (1973)
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Shyness is a very curious thing, because, like quicksand, it can strike people are any time, and also, like quicksand, it usually makes its victims look down.
Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Austere Academy (2000)
I love being with people. But I need a script, a role, something that will help me overcome my fears of rejection and shame. Most religions and belief systems provide a blueprint for some sort of community. And the religion’s leaders model a way of being. For example, in my book Choke, a character enacts his own death and resurrection every night — as does the narrator in Fight Club. Here’s Jesus, allowing himself to look terrible in front of his peers. That’s the biggest purpose of religious gathering: permission to look terrible in public.
Chuck Palahniuk (b. 1962) American novelist and freelance journalist
“Those burnt tongue moments–Chuck Palahniuk in interview”, Interview by Andrew Lawless, Three Monkeys (May 2005)
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I prefer to interact with people one-on-one. Any more than that, and the dynamic becomes competitive and then I get bored easily when I’m not directly participating in the exchange.
Laurie Helgoe (b. 1960) American psychologist and author
Introvert Power (2008)
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Quoting "Suzanne".
It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is like saying of a man he does not like going for walks because he is not fond of walking at night in the forêt de Bondy.
[On dit quelquefois d’un homme qui vit seul: il n’aime pas la Société. C’est souvent comme si on disait d’un homme qu’il n’aime pas la promenade, sous le prétexte qu’il ne se promène pas volontiers le soir dans la forêt de Bondy.]
I love people. I love my family, my children … but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) American writer
Interview, New York Post (26 Apr 1959)
Often paraphrased, "Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up."
Solitude is naught and society is naught. Alternate them and the good of each is seen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1838)
I’m rarely bored alone; I am often bored in groups and crowds.
Laurie Helgoe (b. 1960) American psychologist and author
Introvert Power, ch. 1 (2008)
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Usually attributed to Helgoe, but cited in the book to "Don, Minnesota."
A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
“Of Friendship,” Essays, No. 27 (1625)
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Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) American diplomat, essayist, poet
Among My Books, “Dryden” (1870)
Society is not comfort
To one not sociable.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Cymbeline, Act 4, sc. 2, l. 14ff [Imogen] (1611)
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