Personality Type Quotes

“One of the reasons for learning about type is to recognize that we are constantly motivated, simply by the way we’ve established our neural networks, to shape reality along particular functional lines. Another is to recognize the possibilities for growth and change that exist within—and apart from—the framework we have created for ourselves. Even small changes in our usual way of doing things can make big differences in the way our brain is operating. We develop the ability to think in new ways, and this stimulates creative change in all areas of our lives.”
― Lenore Thomson, Personality Type: An Owner's Manual: A Practical Guide to Understanding Yourself and Others Through Typology

“Introverts are often caught between the need to create a persona in order to relate to others and the need to stay true to themselves. When they wrestle with these competing aims, they gain access to more of their functional potential.”
― Lenore Thomson, Personality Type: An Owner's Manual: A Practical Guide to Understanding Yourself and Others Through Typology

“for Extraverts, the inner world consists of private reactions to collective assumptions, along with mental and emotional content that can’t be accommodated to their outward situation. Their self-image, therefore, may be somewhat negative, because they associate their inner life with experiences of inadequacy or difference from others. In fact, Extraverts have a hard time conceptualizing a self-experience that is not related to external options or to others’ judgments. If self-reflection seems warranted, they do it by talking to people about their private inner life: sharing their feelings of inadequacy or exclusion, their shameful wishes and behaviors, their difficulties with jobs or relationships. Such things are, of course, part of an Introvert’s inner life as well. But Introverts don’t construct their inner life strictly in terms of their outward conditions. So their understanding of self-reflection is different from an Extravert’s.”
― Lenore Thomson, Personality Type: An Owner's Manual: A Practical Guide to Understanding Yourself and Others Through Typology

“For one thing, our society is relentlessly external. When we feel frustrated or dissatisfied, our first impulse is to blame our job, partner, or environment for our lack of interest. We’re encouraged at every turn to solve the problem by embarking on a new career, finding a more exciting love life, or starting a hobby. Usually, however, a feeling of restlessness or dissatisfaction occurs not because our outer situation has lost its appeal but because our unexpressed potential has no other way to get our attention. If anything, our unlived possibilities claim our attention most insistently when we’ve built an outer life strong enough to withstand their realization. The theory of psychological types offers a kind of vocabulary for recognizing and talking about the different ways this sort of thing happens to people. It tells us how our personalities take shape, depending on the gifts and strengths we put into play, and what kinds of inner possibilities may be trying to get our attention.”
― Lenore Thomson, Personality Type: An Owner's Manual: A Practical Guide to Understanding Yourself and Others Through Typology