Top 60 Elaine N. Aron Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “We do not just have an idea of how someone else feels; we actually feel that way ourselves to some extent.”

— Elaine N. Aron

2. “Being so eager to please, we’re not easy to liberate. We’re too aware of what others need.”

— Elaine N. Aron

3. “Reframing is a term from cognitive psychotherapy which simply means seeing something in a new way, in a new context, with a new frame around it.”

— Elaine N. Aron

4. “Whatever the times, suffering eventually touches every life. How we live with it, and help others to, is one of the great creative and ethical opportunities.”

— Elaine N. Aron

5. “You were born to be among the advisors and thinkers, the spiritual and moral leaders for your society. There is every reason for pride.”

— Elaine N. Aron

6. “Even a moderate and familiar stimulation, like a day at work, can cause an HSP to need quiet by evening.”

— Elaine N. Aron

7. “Like a plant, the kind of seed that goes into the ground – your innate temperament – is only part of the story. The quality of soil, water, and sun also deeply affects the grown plant that is now you.”

— Elaine N. Aron

8. “Another kind of HSP could potentially have an even stronger pause-to-check system but an activation system that is also very strong – just not quite as strong. This kind of HSP would be both very curious and very cautious, bold yet anxious, easily bored yet easily overaroused. The optimal level of arousal is a narrow range. One could say there is a constant power struggle between the advisor and the impulsive, expansive warrior within the person.”

— Elaine N. Aron

9. “Yet another form of rest, perhaps the most essential, is “transcendence” – rising above it all, usually in the form of meditation, contemplation, or prayer. At least some of your transcendent time should be aimed at taking you out of all ordinary thinking, into pure consciousness, pure being, pure unity, or oneness with God.”

— Elaine N. Aron

10. “Being so eager to please, we’re not easy to liberate. We’re too aware of what others need. Yet our intuition also picks up on the inner question that must be answered. These two strong, conflicting currents may buffet us for years. Don’t worry if your progress toward liberation is slow, for it’s almost inevitable.”

— Elaine N. Aron

11. “Spend enough time putting yourself out there in the world – your sensitivity is not something to be feared.”

— Elaine N. Aron

12. “Life is short and filled with limits and responsibilities. We each get a piece of the “good” to enjoy, just as we each contribute a piece of that good to the world.”

— Elaine N. Aron

13. “So you’re in good company. Ignore the barbs about “lightening up.” Enjoy the levity of others and allow yourself your own specialty. If you are not good at chitchat, be proud of your silence. Equally important, when your mood changes and your extraverted self appears, let it be as clumsy or silly as it needs to be. We are all awkward doing our nonspecialty. You possess one piece of the “good.” It would only be arrogance to think any of us should have it all.”

— Elaine N. Aron

14. “Some of you may be struggling with discovering your vocation and feeling a little frustrated that your intuition is not helping you more. Alas, intuition can also stand in your way because it makes you aware of too many inner voices speaking for too many different possibilities.”

— Elaine N. Aron

15. “We make it especially hard for others to observe our trait because we are so responsive to our environments that we can be something like chameleons when around others, doing whatever it takes to fit in. I.”

— Elaine N. Aron

16. “Overaroused HSPs tend to substitute “freeze” for the “fight or flight” response.”

— Elaine N. Aron

17. “It is important that we and the public not confuse high sensitivity with “neuroticism,” which includes certain types of intense anxiety, depression, overattachment, or avoidance of intimacy, and are usually due to a troubled childhood. True, some of us were dealt both hands in life – high sensitivity and neuroticism – but the two things are not at all the same.”

— Elaine N. Aron

18. “Others knew they were different, but hid it and adapted, acting like the non-sensitive majority.”

— Elaine N. Aron

19. “We cannot “play” until all the details of our work are done. The details are like little needles of arousal poking us. But that can make it difficult to relax and have some fun.”

— Elaine N. Aron

20. “To Jung, the unconscious contains important wisdom to be learned. A life lived in deep communication with the unconscious is far more influential and personally satisfying.”

— Elaine N. Aron

21. “The idea of a persona goes against North American culture’s admiration of openness and authenticity. Europeans have a far better grasp of the value of not saying everything that one is thinking. Yet.”

— Elaine N. Aron

22. “The point is best made by Aristotle, who supposedly asked, “Would you rather be a happy pig or an unhappy human?” HSPs prefer the good feeling of being very conscious, very human, even if what we are conscious of is not always cause for rejoicing.”

— Elaine N. Aron

23. “Being highly sensitive does not at all rule out being, in your own way, a tenacious survivor.”

— Elaine N. Aron

24. “In short, a strong royal advisor class insists on stopping and thinking. And it tries, I think with growing success in modern times, to direct the wonderful, expansive energy of their society away from aggression and domination. Better to use that energy for creative inventions, exploration, and protection of the planet and the powerless.”

— Elaine N. Aron

25. “I am deeply moved by things. I’d hate to miss the intense joy of that.”

— Elaine N. Aron

26. “All virtues have a shadow.”

— Elaine N. Aron

27. “A teacher of meditation once told the story of a man who wanted nothing to do with the stress of life, so he retreated to a cave to meditate day and night for the rest of his life. But soon he came out again, driven to overwhelming distress by the sound of the dripping of water in his cave. The moral is that, at least to some extent, the stresses will always be there, for we bring our sensitivity with us. What we need is a new way of living with the stressors.”

— Elaine N. Aron

28. “Do not overschedule yourself. Allow time to think, to daydream. 6. Keep your expectations realistic. 7. Do not hide your abilities. 8. Be your own advocate. Support your right to be yourself. 9. Accept it when you have narrow interests. Or broad ones.”

— Elaine N. Aron

29. “But for you, work is play. Not to work would be work.”

— Elaine N. Aron

30. “A real man or woman is whatever any man or woman is at those times when he or she is living authentically, in accord with his or her true self and temperament. There is no truer definition of your gender than you.”

— Elaine N. Aron

31. “But psychology is not perfect. It can only reflect the biases of the culture from which it comes.”

— Elaine N. Aron

32. “Individuation is, above all, about being able to hear your inner voice or voices through all the inner and outer noise.”

— Elaine N. Aron

33. “What is highly arousing for most people causes an HSP to become very frazzled indeed, until they reach a shutdown point called “transmarginal inhibition.” Transmarginal inhibition was first discussed around the turn of the century by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who was convinced that the most basic inherited difference among people was how soon they reach this shutdown point and that the quick-to-shut-down have a fundamentally different type of nervous system.”

— Elaine N. Aron

34. “Make good boundaries your goal. They are your right, your responsibility, your greatest source of dignity.”

— Elaine N. Aron

35. “It is true that even when exhausted you still are providing something to those you serve. But you are out of touch with your deepest strengths, role-modelling self-destructive behaviour, martyring yourself, and giving others cause for guilt.”

— Elaine N. Aron

36. “And there are plenty of ways to self-destruct: marrying or having a baby in a way that imprisons one in a narrow, prescribed role; abusing drugs or alcohol; becoming physically or mentally incapacitated; joining a cult or organization that offers security and answers; or suicide.”

— Elaine N. Aron

37. “Slowly, a gentle, quiet, personal victory of the spirit grows out of her fear and doubt.”

— Elaine N. Aron

38. “Finally, being sensitive to the discomfort, disapproval, or anger of others probably made you quick to follow every rule as perfectly as possible, afraid to make a mistake.”

— Elaine N. Aron

39. “D is for depth of processing. Our fundamental characteristic is that we observe and reflect before we act. We process everything more, whether we are conscious of it or not. O is for being easily overstimulated, because if you are going to pay more attention to everything, you are bound to tire sooner. E is for giving emphasis to our emotional reactions and having strong empathy which among other things helps us notice and learn. S is for being sensitive to all the subtleties around us.”

— Elaine N. Aron

40. “In the first twenty years we are given our curriculum. In the next twenty we study it.”

— Elaine N. Aron

41. “In short, somewhere inside you there is a Machiavelli. Yes, he is a ruthless manipulator; but no prince, especially a kind one, would stay in power long without at least one advisor with as remorseless a point of view as that of the enemies a prince will surely have. The trick is to listen well but keep Machiavelli in his place.”

— Elaine N. Aron

42. “How discouraging to watch your friends enjoying something you are too afraid to try. Do not underestimate such discouragement. It can be just as present in adulthood as you see friends taking on careers, travel, moves, and relationships that you would fear. Yet deep inside you also know you have the same or more talent, desire, and potential.”

— Elaine N. Aron

43. “Even without overt sexual abuse, all young women are known to experience a descent into low self-esteem at puberty, probably as they realize their role as sexual objects. The highly sensitive girl will sense all the implications even more and make self-protection a higher priority. Some overeat to become unattractive, some overstudy or overtrain so they have no free time, some pick one boy early and hang on to him for protection.”

— Elaine N. Aron

44. “HSPs usually respond to change with resistance. Or we try to throw ourselves into it, but we still suffer from it. We just don’t “do” change well, even good changes. That can be the most maddening. When.”

— Elaine N. Aron

45. “As I have emphasized, HSPs are prone to low self-esteem because they are not their culture’s ideal.”

— Elaine N. Aron

46. “With sensitive children, physical blows or traumas aren’t required to make them afraid of the dark.”

— Elaine N. Aron

47. “You can be, should be, and need to be involved in the world. It truly needs you.”

— Elaine N. Aron

48. “Everything alive is important; there’s something greater, I know.”

— Elaine N. Aron

49. “The Romans had a great general named Cincinnatus. The legend is that he had wanted to live quietly on his farm but was persuaded twice to return to public.”

— Elaine N. Aron

50. “Sometimes people with our trait are said to be less happy or less capable of happiness. Of course, we can seem unhappy and moody, at least to non-HSPs, because we spend so much time thinking about things like the meaning of life and death and how complicated everything is – not black-and-white thoughts at all. Since most non-HSPs do not seem to enjoy thinking about such things, they assume we must be unhappy doing all that pondering. And.”

— Elaine N. Aron