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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

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Susan Cain
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: March 20
Lawyer
Non-Fiction Writer
Writer
Values
Ideal
Individual
Admire
Self
Putting
Think
Ideals
Gregarious
Thinking
Value
Spotlight
Like
Comfortable
Bold
Type
Individuality
Society
Mostly

More quotes by Susan Cain

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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?
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Shyness is inherently uncomfortable introversion is not. The traits do overlap, though psychologists debate to what degree.
Susan Cain
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(Finland is a famously introverted nation. Finnish joke: How can you tell if a Finn likes you? He's staring at your shoes instead of his own.)
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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.
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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.
Susan Cain
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Figure out what you are meant to contribute to the world and make sure you contribute it
Susan Cain
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The purpose of school should be to prepare kids for the rest of their lives, but too often what kids need to be prepared for is surviving the school day itself.
Susan Cain
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The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting.
Susan Cain
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I worry that there are people who are put in positions of authority because they're good talkers, but they don't have good ideas.
Susan Cain
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It's never a good idea to organize society in a way that depletes the energy of half the population.
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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.
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I use a lot of old-fashioned expressions.
Susan Cain
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But when the group is literally capable of changing our perceptions, and when to stand alone is to activate primitive, powerful, and unconscious feelings of rejection, then the health of these institutions seems far more vulnerable than we think.
Susan Cain
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Introverts are offered keys to private gardens full of riches. To possess such a key is to tumble like Alice down her rabbit hole. She didn't choose to go to Wonderland - but she made of it an adventure that was fresh and fantastic and very much her own.
Susan Cain
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we have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionally
Susan Cain
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...if you can think of meetings you've attended, you can probably recall a time - plenty of times - when the opinion of the most dynamic or talkative person prevailed to the detriment of all.
Susan Cain
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The glory of the disposition that stops to consider stimuli rather than rushing to engage with them is its long association with intellectual and artistic achievement. Neither E=mc2 nor Paradise Lost was dashed off by a party animal.
Susan Cain
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When you go to a football game and someone offers you a beer [...], they're really saying hi, have a glass of extroversion.
Susan Cain
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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
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Studies have shown that performance gets worse as group size increases ... If you have talented and motivated people, they should be encouraged to work alone when creativity or efficiency is the highest priority.
Susan Cain