College students who tend to study alone learn more over time than those who work in groups. Susan Cain More Quotes by Susan Cain More Quotes From Susan Cain INTROVERTS are especially vulnerable to challenges like marital tension, a parent’s death, or abuse. They’re more likely than their peers to react to these events with depression, anxiety, and shyness. Indeed, about a quarter of Kagan’s high-reactive kids suffer from some degree of the condition known as “social anxiety disorder,” a chronic and disabling form of shyness. Susan Cain anxiety-disorder parent kids 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 what-if wish world If you enjoy depth, don't force yourself to seek breadth. If you prefer single-tasking to multi-tasking, stick to your guns. Susan Cain depth gun sticks Schwartz's research suggests something important: we can stretch our personalities, but only up to a point. Our inborn temperaments influence us, regardless of the lives we lead. A sizeable part of who we are is ordained by our genes, by our brains, by our nervous systems. And yet the elasticity that Schwartz found in some of the high-reactive teens also suggests the converse: we have free will and can use it to shape our personalities. Susan Cain important personality brain There are only a few people out there who can completely overcome their fears, and they all live in Tibet. Susan Cain tibet overcoming people I had always imagined Rosa Parks as a stately woman with a bold temperament, someone who could easily stand up to a busload of glowering passengers. But when she died in 2005 at the age of ninety-two, the flood of obituaries recalled her as soft-spoken, sweet, and small in stature. They said she was "timid and shy" but had "the courage of a lion." They were full of phrases like "radical humility" and "quiet fortitude. Susan Cain humility sweet two you once said to would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing one self to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when involved with others, would feel he was losing himself, and from which, therefore, he will always shrink as long as he is in his right mind...That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough. Susan Cain writing night mean I get a lot of letters from introverts asking how they can meet people. The key is to make sure that you are doing things you enjoy. Susan Cain keys asking people Introverts need to trust their gut and share their ideas as powerfully as they can. This does not mean aping extroverts; ideas can be shared quietly, they can be communicated in writing, they can be packaged into highly produced lectures, they can be advanced by allies. The trick for introverts is to honor their own styles instead of allowing themselves to be swept up by prevailing norms. Susan Cain writing mean ideas America had shifted from what influential cultural historian Warren Susman called a culture of character to a culture of personality, and opened up a Pandora's box of personal anxieties of which we would never recover. Susan Cain personality character america I'm insatiably curious about human nature. Susan Cain curious human-nature humans As a young boy, Charles Darwin made friends easily but preferred to spend his time taking long, solitary nature walks. (As an adult he was no different. “My dear Mr. Babbage,” he wrote to the famous mathematician who had invited him to a dinner party, “I am very much obliged to you for sending me cards for your parties, but I am afraid of accepting them, for I should meet some people there, to whom I have sworn by all the saints in Heaven, I never go out.”) Susan Cain party boys long When you're more focused in getting your message across than you are worrying about how people are viewing you, that's huge. Susan Cain messages worry 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. Susan Cain party wine believe 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 our-society disappointment self Your tendency to be inward-directed or outward-directed is huge; it governs every part of the way you live and work and love. Susan Cain inward and-love way Some introverts are perfectly comfortable with public speaking; I'm not one of them. Susan Cain speaking-in-public introvert public-speaking 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 personality opposites long Shyness is inherently uncomfortable; introversion is not. The traits do overlap, though psychologists debate to what degree. Susan Cain shyness debate degrees Figure out what you are meant to contribute to the world and make sure you contribute it Susan Cain figures world