Top 500 Susan Cain Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Solitude matters, and for some people, it’s the air they breathe.”

— Susan Cain

Featured in: Feeling Alone Quotes, Solitude Quotes

2. “Everyone shines, given the right lighting.”

— Susan Cain

3. “Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you’re supposed to.”

— Susan Cain

Featured in: Focus On Yourself Quotes, Enjoy Life Quotes

4. “Our culture is biased against quiet and reserved people, but introverts are responsible for some of humanity’s greatest achievements.”

— Susan Cain

Featured in: Psychology Quotes

5. “We have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionally.”

— Susan Cain

6. “Don’t think of introversion as something that needs to be cured.”

— Susan Cain

7. “There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.”

— Susan Cain

8. “Introverts often work more slowly and deliberately. They like to focus on one task at a time and can have mighty powers of concentration. They’re relatively immune to the lures of wealth and fame.”

— Susan Cain

9. “Introverts are capable of acting like extroverts for the sake of work they consider important, people they love, or anything they value highly.”

— Susan Cain

Featured in: Quotes About Acting

10. “Solve problems, make art, think deeply.”

— Susan Cain

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

— Susan Cain

12. “What looks like multitasking is really switching back and forth between multiple tasks, which reduces productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50 percent.”

— Susan Cain

13. “Most people who have grown up introverted in this very extroverted culture of ours have had painful experiences of feeling like they are out of step with what’s expected of them.”

— Susan Cain

14. “The next time you see a person with a composed face and a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might, that is, be deploying the power of quiet.”

— Susan Cain

15. “You’re told that you’re in your head too much, a phrase that’s often deployed against the quiet and cerebral. Or maybe there’s another word for such people: thinkers.”

— Susan Cain

16. “Brainstorming had four rules: 1. Don’t judge or criticize ideas. 2. Be freewheeling. The wilder the idea, the better. 3. Go for quantity. The more ideas you have, the better. 4. Build on the ideas of fellow group members.”

— Susan Cain

17. “Introverts prefer to work independently, and solitude can be a catalyst to innovation.”

— Susan Cain

18. “We don’t need giant personalities to transform companies. We need leaders who build not their own egos but the institutions they run.”

— Susan Cain

19. “College students who tend to study alone learn more over time than those who work in groups.”

— Susan Cain

20. “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.”

— Susan Cain

21. “Figure out what you are meant to contribute to the world and make sure you contribute it.”

— Susan Cain

22. “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

23. “We put too much of a premium on presenting and not enough on substance and critical thinking.”

— Susan Cain

24. “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

25. “Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire.”

— Susan Cain

26. “Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure.”

— Susan Cain

27. “Any time people come together in a meeting, we’re not necessarily getting the best ideas; we’re just getting the ideas of the best talkers.”

— Susan Cain

28. “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

29. “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

30. “I’ve never given a speech without being terrified first.”

— Susan Cain

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

31. “We’ve known about the transcendent power of solitude for centuries; it’s only recently that we’ve forgotten it.”

— Susan Cain

32. “Or at school you might have been prodded to come “out of your shell” – that noxious expression which fails to appreciate that some animals naturally carry shelter everywhere they go, and that some humans are just the same.”

— Susan Cain

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

— Susan Cain

34. “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.”

— Susan Cain

35. “One genuine new relationship is worth a fistful of business cards.”

— Susan Cain

36. “Introverts recharge their batteries by being alone; extroverts need to recharge when they don’t socialize enough. If.”

— Susan Cain

37. “Persistence isn’t very glamorous. If genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, then as a culture we tend to lionize the one percent. We love its flash and dazzle. But great power lies in the other ninety-nine percent.”

— Susan Cain

38. “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.”

— Susan Cain

39. “Why shouldn’t quiet be strong?”

— Susan Cain

40. “Opposites attract, and I think temperament is so fundamental that you end up craving someone of the opposite temperament to complete you.”

— Susan Cain

41. “The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting.”

— Susan Cain

42. “Love is essential, gregariousness is optional.”

— Susan Cain

43. “Soft power is quiet persistence.”

— Susan Cain

44. “Introverts recharge their batteries by being alone;.”

— Susan Cain

45. “I’m not saying abolish group work – I think there’s a time and a place for people to come together and exchange ideas, but let’s restore the respect we once had for solitude. And we need to be much more mindful of the way we come together.”

— Susan Cain

46. “I use a lot of old-fashioned expressions.”

— Susan Cain

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

— Susan Cain

48. “It’s never a good idea to organize society in a way that depletes the energy of half the population.”

— Susan Cain

49. “The key to flow is to pursue an activity for its own sake, not for the rewards it brings.”

— Susan Cain

50. “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