116 Introvert Quotes to Capture the Essence of Your Personality

Do you identify yourself as an introvert?

The answer is probably yes—after all, you wouldn’t be landing on this page if you don’t. You likely wouldn’t be looking for introvert quotes if you are an extrovert!

But if you are not an introvert and you are simply looking for some explanation about why introverts prefer to be alone rather than in big groups, you are still in the right place.

Today, we will explain through quotes what introverts are and how they feel so you can better understand them.

There is a common misconception that being an introvert is “irregular” behavior. In reality, it is totally normal to want to avoid highly social events. Some people simply don’t enjoy this type of atmosphere.

First up, let’s start by sharing some quotes from famous introverted people. We hope that, through these quotes, you will be able to understand the essence of introverted behavior.

Introvert Quotes from Famous Persons

1. “Without great solitude no serious work is possible.” – Pablo Picasso

2. “Deep inside, she knew who she was, and that person was smart and kind and often even funny, but somehow her personality always got lost somewhere between her heart and her mouth, and she found herself saying the wrong thing or, more often, nothing at all.” – Julia Quinn

3. “Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Gustav Jung

4. “I’m an introvert… I love being by myself, love being outdoors, love taking a long walk with my dogs and looking at the trees, flowers, and the sky.” – Audrey Hepburn

5. “You may think I’m small, but I have a universe inside my mind.” – Yoko Ono

6. “I’m very picky with whom I give my energy to. I prefer to reserve my time, intensity and spirit exclusively to those who reflect sincerity.” – Dau Voire

7. “I think a lot, but I don’t say much.” – Anne Frank

8. “I don’t believe anything really revolutionary has ever been invented by committee… I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone… Not on a committee. Not on a team.” – Steve Wozniak

9. “Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren’t a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was.” – Cheryl Strayed

10. “I want to be alone… with someone else who wants to be alone.” – Dimitri Zaik

11. “As a child, I suppose I was not quite normal. My happiest times were when I was left alone in the house on a Saturday.” – Charles Bukowski

12. “‘Come out of your shell’ – that noxious expression which fails to appreciate that some animals naturally carry shelter everywhere they go and some humans are just the same.” – Susan Cain

13. “I owe everything that I have done to the fact that I am very much at ease being alone.” – Marilynne Robinson

14. “Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.” – Marcus Aurelius

15. “How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here forever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.” – Virginia Wolf, The Waves

16. “My imagination functions much better when I don’t have to speak to people.” – Patricia Highsmith

17. “The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulate the creative mind.” – Albert Einstein

If you are an introvert, you were probably able to relate to the quotes above. You enjoy solitude and find beauty in isolation; you triumph over silence and rejoice in the wilderness. You are at your best whenever you are by yourself.

This brings us to our next set of quotes: inspirational words for introverts. If there ever comes a time when you feel strange for behaving the way you do, read these quotes to inspire and motivate you to push through.

Inspirational Introvert Quotes

18. “Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.” – William S. Boroughs

19. “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” – Aristotle

20. “Don’t think of introversion as something that needs to be cured… Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you’re supposed to.” – Susan Cain

21. “The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. Those who walk alone are likely to find themselves in places no one has ever been before.” – Francis Phillip Wernig

22. “Don’t underestimate me because I’m quiet. I know more than I say, think more than I speak and observe more than you know.” – Michaela Chung

23. “A good rule of thumb is that any environment that consistently leaves you feeling bad about who you are is the wrong environment.” – Laurie Helgoe

24. “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.” – Anne Lamott

25. “Your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it, you will find all your paths.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

26. “Let’s clear one thing up: Introverts do not hate small talk because we dislike people. We hate small talk because we hate the barrier it creates between people.” – Laurie Helgoe

27. “I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but like everybody else, it must be in my own way.” – Jane Austen

28. “Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.” – Albert Einstein

29. “People are always so boring when they band together. You have to be alone to develop all the idiosyncrasies that make a person interesting.” – Andy Warhol

30. “Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone—that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.” – Nikola Tesla

31. “Blessed are those who do not fear solitude, who are not afraid of their own company, who are not always desperately looking for something to do, something to amuse them with, and something to judge.” – Paulo Coelho

32. “Stay true to your own nature. If you like to do things in a slow and steady way, don’t let others make you feel as if you have to race. If you enjoy depth, don’t force yourself to seek breadth.” – Susan Cain

33. “Quiet people have the loudest minds.” – Stephen Hawking

34. “Do what you feel in your heart to be right for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Introverts often take the road less traveled. They choose to be different, and often aspire to do great things and leave a legacy.

If you are one of these people, never lose that enthusiasm to keep pursuing your dreams. You are on your way to greatness.

Lastly, we’d like to share with you some funny quotes that introverts might find amusing.

Funny Introvert Quotes

35. “Silence is beautiful, not awkward. The human tendency to be afraid of something beautiful is awkward.” – Elliot Kay

36. “Introverts are word economists in a society suffering from verbal diarrhea.” – Michaela Chung

37. “My alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude.” – Warsan Shire

38. “I talked to a calzone for fifteen minutes last night before I realized it was just an introverted pizza. I wish all my acquaintances were so tasty.” – Jarod Kintz

39. “People inspire you, or they drain you — pick them wisely.” – Hans F. Hansen

40. “I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.” – Henry David Thoreau

41. “You might be an introvert if you were ready to go home before you left the house.” – Criss Jami

42. “I’m indecisive because I see eight sides to everything.” – April Kepner

43. “A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with the company.” – Oscar Wilde

44. “There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” – Susan Cain

45. “Sometimes I just shut down and don’t talk to anyone for days. It’s nothing personal.” – Sonya Teclai

46. “Kindly remove yourself from my personal space. Thanks.” – Gemma Correll

47. “A wise man once said nothing.” – Proverb

48. “I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.” – Cicero

49. “I don’t want to be alone. I want to be left alone.” – Audrey Hepburn

More Introvert Quotes

50. “Introvert allergies: social obligations, phone calls after 6 pm, group of more than 3 people, talkative hairdresser and hosts that don’t let you leave early.”

51. “It’s not because I don’t want to look at you. It’s that I don’t want to be seen.” – Jonathan Lethem

52. “I have to be alone very often. I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That’s how I refuel.” – Audrey Hepburn

53. “Sometimes you just need to lay on the couch and read for a couple of years.”

54. “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

55. “There is a tremendous difference between alone and lonely. You could be lonely in a group of people. I like being alone. I like eating by myself. I go home at night and just watch a movie or hang out with my dog. I have to exert myself and really say, oh God, I’ve got to see my friends because I’m too content by myself.” – Drew Barrymore

56. “The only thing I bring to social gatherings are excuses to leave early.”

57. “In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.” – Rollo May

58. “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.” – Susan Cain

59. “The highest form of love is to be the protector of another person’s solitude.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

60. “When you’re an introvert like me and you’ve been lonely for a while, and then you find someone who understands you, you become really attached to them. It’s a real release.” – Lana Del Rey

61. “People empty me. I have to get away to refill.” – C. Bukowski

62. “Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again.” – Anais Nin

63. “After an hour or two of being socially on, we introverts need to turn off and recharge. This isn’t antisocial. It isn’t a sign of depression.” – Jonathan Rauch

64. “I don’t have time for superficial friends, I suppose if you’re really lonely you can call a superficial friend, but otherwise, what’s the point?” – Courtney Cox

65. “[Introverts] listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror for small talk, but enjoy deep discussions.” – Susan Cain

66. “People always tell introverts to be more talkative and leave their comfort zones, yet no one tells extroverts to shut up to make the zone comfortable.” – TheRockle.com

67. “When I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.” – Mary Oliver

68. “You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” – Franz Kafka

69. “Don’t come to my house unannounced. I will stare at you from my window.” – TheRockle.com

70. “E-mail is far more convenient than the telephone. As far as I’m concerned, I would throw my phone away if I could get away with it.” – Tom Hanks

71. “Confident introverts don’t avoid social situations. They just make wise choices.” – Unknown

72. “I really like to stay in my nest and not move. I travel in my mind, and that’s a rigorous state of journeying for me. My body isn’t that interested in moving from place to place.” – Bell Hooks

73. “You only know part of me. I am a universe full of secrets.” – Lupytha Hermin

74. “Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me. They’re shy and they live in their heads. The very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone…” – Steve Wozniak

75. “The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.” – Aldous Huxley

76. “No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.” – Virginia Woolf

77. “Here’s a PSA for all you extroverts out there. If an introvert nods and says hello it absolutely doesn’t automatically mean they want to engage in an actual conversation with you.” – TheRockle.com

78. “Introverts crave meaning so party chitchat feels like sandpaper to our psyche.” – Diane Cameron

79. “What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.” – Ellen Burstyn

80. “If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.” – Jodi Picoult

81. “Writing is something you do alone. It’s a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don't want to make eye contact while doing it.” – John Green

82. “Nobody enjoys the company of others as intensely as someone who usually avoids the company of others.” – Mokokoma Mokhonoana

83. “Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts.” – Jonathan Rauch

84. “Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent.” – Napoleon Hill

85. “My idea of a fun night was diving into a massive pile of To Be Read books stacked near my dresser.” – Jeff Sampson

86. “People say things to me like, ‘It’s really cool that you don’t go out and get drunk all the time and go to clubs.’ I appreciate that, but I’m kind of an introverted kind of person just by nature.” – Emma Watson

87. “I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” – Henry David Thoreau

88. “Companionship is a foreign concept to some people. They fear it as much as the majority of people fear loneliness.” – Criss Jami

89. “I need space from a world that is filled with millions of mouths that talk too much but never have anything to say.” – Kaitlin Foster

90. “I think the best thing I have is the introvert's ability to listen when you're working on something as complicated as this and you have to really be aware of everyone's specialized skills.” – Jennifer Yuh Nelson

91. “For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating.” – Jonathan Rauch

92. “I was never less alone than when by myself.” – Edward Gibbon

93. “The day I began to live is the day I discovered being an introvert was awesome.” – Maxime Lagacé

94. “It’s never a good idea to organize society in a way that depletes the energy of half the population. We discovered this with women decades ago, and now it’s time to realize it with introverts.” – Susan Cain

95. “Extroverts sparkle, introverts glow. Extroverts are fireworks, introverts are a fire in the hearth.” – Sophia Dembling

96. “You shouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

97. “Isn’t it refreshing to know that what comes perfectly natural for you is your greatest strength? Your power is in your nature. You may not think it’s a big deal that you can spend hours immersed in something that interests you — alone — but the extrovert next door has no idea how you do it.” – Laurie Helgoe

98. “So, if you are too tired to speak, sit next to me, because I, too, am fluent in silence.” – R. Arnold

99. “Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them, they’ve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds… Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.” – Neil Gaiman

100. “Understand that half the game is keeping quiet, and carefully watching those around you.” – Robert Greene

101. “Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.” – Paul Tillich

102. “Live your life the way you want, not the way society tells you.” – Maxime Lagacé

103. “The world needs to accept introversion as normal. The world should stop associating introversion with mental illness.” – Mitta Xinindlu

104. “You're one of those who has to tune the world out and focus on one thing at a time. We have a word for that down here, women like you. Insiwa. Inside one. It means you live inside your head and to step out of it hurts like a caning.” – Rivers Solomon

105. “I don’t hate people. I just feel better when they are not around.” – Charles Bukowski

106. “An introvert may feel asocial when pressured to go to a party that doesn’t interest her. But for her, the event does not promise meaningful interaction. In fact, she knows that the party will leave her feeling more alone and alienated.” – Laurie Helgoe

107. “Don’t feel stupid if you don’t like what everyone else pretends to love.” – Emma Watson

108. “Accept everything about yourself – I mean everything. You are you and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets.” – Clark Moustakas

109. “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi

110. “The most important thing to know about being an introvert is that there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not broken because you’re quiet. It’s okay to stay home on a Friday night instead of going to a party. Being an introvert is a perfectly normal ‘thing’ to be.” – Jenn Granneman

111. “So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them.” – Sylvia Plath

112. “Introverts are dependent on their own inside noise, extroverts are dependent on outside noise. The outputs are dependent on the quality of those noises.” – Amit K Ghosh

113. “While extroverts are verbal processors, who speak as they think, introverts need to think before we speak. This leads to a slower, more thoughtful communication style that involves fewer words, and longer pauses.” – Michaela Chung

114. “As an introvert, you can be your own best friend or your worst enemy. The good news is we generally like our own company, a quality that extroverts often envy. We find comfort in solitude and know how to soothe ourselves.” – Laurie Helgoe

115. “You’ve gotta keep control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.” – Warren Buffett

116. “Introverts live in two worlds: We visit the world of people, but solitude and the inner world will always be our home.” – Jenn Granneman

Final Thoughts on Introvert Quotes

You probably wouldn’t believe us if we told you that Michael Jordan and Lady Gaga are introverts, but they actually are. Albert Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi are also part of the crew.

The fact that these people have contributed to the world more than nearly anyone else was not limited by the fact that they weren’t extroverts.

Never underestimate the power of an introvert. They might seem to be quiet and shy, but they are probably just too busy making plans to change the world in the most unimaginable ways.

If you identify yourself as an introvert, we hope that these quotes can encourage you to love your unique self even more. If you are someone who knows an introvert, we hope that we were able to help you understand the true nature behind this personality trait.

Did any of the quotes resonate with you?

If so, feel free to share them through your favorite social media platform would be greatly appreciated!

And if you want more inspirational quotes, be sure to check out these blog posts:

• 37 Slow Down Quotes to Enjoy Your Life
• 165 Anxiety Quotes to Keep You Calm When You Feel Stressed Out
• 51 Overwhelmed Quotes for When You Need a Break

Finally, if you want to use these quotes to make a lasting change to your life, then check out and recite these 57 affirmations for success.