The Highly Sensitive Person Quotes

“The extraverted are right, however, when they say that “a stranger is just a friend I haven’t met yet.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“The negative side of this permission to be emotional, however, can be that a sensitive girl is never forced to put on the armor that sensitive boys have to don to survive. Girls may have little practice in emotional control and feel helpless in the face of emotional overarousal. Or they may use their emotions to manipulate others, including to protect themselves from overarousal. “If we have to play that game again, I’m going to cry.” The straightforward self-assertion needed in adulthood is not expected or wanted from them.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Thus, I have always been more of an envious observer than a participant in physical activities, but there have been glowing exceptions, such as what happened at the end of a summer-solstice celebration I attended in California, on a ranch in the foothills of the Sierras. The women at the event were of all ages. But in the evening, when they had found a swing, they became a group of young girls. The swing was on a long rope and swept out over a slope. In the twilight, it was like flying to the stars. Or so they said. Everyone had tried it except me. When the others had wandered indoors, I stayed, looking at the swing and feeling that old shame of being the scaredy-cat, even though probably no one had noticed. Then a woman much younger than I appeared and offered to show me how to use the swing. I said no, I didn’t want to. But she ignored that. She promised she would never push me harder than I wanted. And she held out the swing. It took some time. But somehow I felt safe with her, and I built up the courage to swing out toward the stars like the others. I never saw that young woman again, but I will always be grateful not only for the experience but for the respect and understanding she showed as she taught me how—one gentle swing at a time.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Fears can increase at this age for many reasons. First, there is simple conditioning: Whatever was around when you were overaroused became associated with overarousal and so became something more to be feared. Second, you may have realized just how much was going to be expected of you, how little your hesitations would be understood. Third, your sensitively tuned “antenna” picked up on all the feelings in others, even those emotions they wanted to hide from you or themselves. Since some of those feelings were frightening (given that your survival depended on these people), you may have repressed your knowledge of them. But your fear remained and expressed itself as more “unreasonable” fear.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“The bottom line is that in those first years you either learned to trust the other, and the outer world generally, or you didn’t.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“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, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Perhaps the greatest maturity is our ability to conceive the whole universe as our container, our body as a microcosm of that universe, with no boundaries. That is more or less enlightenment. But most of us will need more finite containers for a while, even if we are beginning to learn to make do with intangible ones in a pinch. Indeed, as long as we are in bodies, enlightened or not, we need some bit of tangible safety, or at least a sense of sameness.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Watch for the phrase that was almost your “middle name”—the one they would put on your gravestone if given half a chance.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“When holding is not adequate, when the infant/body is intruded upon or neglected—or worse, abused—stimulation is too intense for the infant/body self. Its only recourse is to stop being conscious and present, thereby developing a habit of “dissociating” as a defense. Overstimulation at this age also interrupts self-development. All energy must be directed toward keeping the world from intruding. The whole world is dangerous.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“This two-system explanation of sensitivity also suggests two different types of HSPs. Some might have only an average-strength pause-to-check system but an activation system that is even weaker. This kind of HSP might be very calm, quiet, and content with a simple life. It’s as if the royal advisors are monks who rule the whole country/person. 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, The Highly Sensitive Person

“When we decide without knowing how we came to that decision, we call this intuition, and HSPs have good (but not infallible!) intuition. When you make a decision consciously, you may notice that you are slower than others because you think over all the options so carefully. That’s depth of processing too.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“What does differential susceptibility mean for you? If you tend to be depressed or anxious, it may mean that you were more affected by a difficult childhood (troubles at home or at school) than other adults with similar childhood experiences. (Or that you are simply under too much stress, or something else is making you depressed or anxious.) While someone might tell you that you are making too much of your childhood problems, this research says you are probably not. You really were more affected and would benefit or have already benefited from help if you sought it, even if others would not feel the need. More important, and a special reason for hope—you may well gain more from help than others would. On the other hand, this research also means that if you had a reasonably good childhood, people who do not know you well may hardly notice your sensitivity. They will be too busy admiring its parts—your creativity, conscientiousness, kindness, and foresight. You have probably learned to take downtime when you need it, which is more often than others do, and avoid overstimulating environments, but only people close to you see this side of you.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Further, we are so responsive to our environments that we can be somewhat like chameleons when around others, doing whatever it takes to fit in.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“The local newspaper got wind of it and published an article titled “Born to Be Mild” in the Sunday Lifestyle section, with a big photo of us.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“About sixty thousand subscribe to my free e-mail newsletter at hsperson.com, where there are now hundreds of articles and blog posts I have written over the years, all archived so that you can search and find something on almost every aspect of being highly sensitive. This is all because you have discovered that you are highly sensitive. I know that for many of you it has changed your life, so we have reason to celebrate this growth over twenty-five years.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“they understand what you think is its value, you can let them make up their own mind.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“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, The Highly Sensitive Person

“You possess one piece of the “good.” It would only be arrogance to think any of us should have it all.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“But many HSPs avoid people who come in the overstimulating packages—the strangers, the big parties, the crowds. For”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. . . . To put the question in general terms would be comparable to the question posed to a chess champion, “Tell me, Master, what is the best move in the world?” There simply is no such thing as the best or even a good move apart from a particular situation in a game. . . . One should not search for an abstract meaning of life.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“[Introverts] are also more flexible in a sense, in that sometimes they must do what extraverts do all the time, meet strangers and go to parties. But some extraverted people can avoid being introverted, turning inward, for years at a time.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Envy can wake us up to one of two truths: We want something and better do something about it while we still can, or we want something and just cannot have it.
[…]
If your envy is strong and you decide you want to do something, you probably can.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“You and I are learning to see our trait as a neutral thing—useful in some situations, not in others—but our culture definitely does not see it, or any trait as neutral. The anthropologist Margaret Mead explained it well. Although a culture’s newborns will show a broad range of inherited temperaments, only a narrow band of these, a certain type, will be the ideal. The ideal personality is embodied, in Mead's words, in 'every thread of the social fabric—in the care of the young child, the games the children play, the songs the people sing, the political organization, the religious observance, the art and the philosophy.' Other traits are ignored, discouraged, or if all else fails, ridiculed.
What is the ideal in our culture? Movies, advertisements, the design of public spaces, all tell us we should be as tough as the Terminator, as stoic as Clint Eastwood, as outgoing as Goldie Hawn. We should be pleasantly stimulated by bright lights, noise, a gang of cheerful fellows hanging out in a bar. If we are feeling overwhelmed and sensitive, we can always take a painkiller.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“It was as if [highly sensitive subjects] found it natural to look beyond their cultural expectations to how things "really are.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“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, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“It will be implied that this goal is "normal", but it may really be the goal of being like them or like the majority of people, ignoring differences in temperament. A good cognitive-behavioral therapist, however, will be attuned to individual differences...”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“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-modeling self-destructive behavior, martyring yourself, and giving others cause for guilt.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“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, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Survive and Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“If someone caring for you became angry or dangerous, the conscious mind buried that information as too awful to acknowledge,”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Survive and Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“You were born to be among the advisors and thinkers, the spiritual and moral leaders of your society. There is every reason for pride.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person