Introvert Quotes, Sayings
This list of introvert quotes captures the essence of the introverted personality, which is characterized by inwardly-focused thoughts and ideas.
These quotes and sayings can help introverts feel understood and validated. They can also help extroverts better understand their introverted friends and colleagues.
From these introvert personality quotes, you’ll learn what introverts often say and what they mean when they say it.
Best introvert quotes and sayings
Introverts are often misunderstood. They are seen as shy, antisocial, or even boring.
But in reality, introverts simply have a different way of interacting with the world. They prefer to focus on their inner thoughts and feelings, and they often need time alone to recharge.
Let’s take a look at some of the best introvert quotes, beginning with the lighter side of being introverted.
1. Funny introvert quotes
Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.
Anne Lamott
Better to keep quiet and let people think you’re an idiot than speak up and confirm it.
Rodney Dangerfield
I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Introverts are word economists in a society suffering from verbal diarrhea.
Michaela Chung
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
Writing is something you do alone. Its a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don’t want to make eye contact while doing it.
John Green
There’s a difference between preferring books to parties and preferring sixteen cats to seeing the light of day.
Lauren Morrill
I hope you like social awkwardness, because that’s all I’m bringing to the party.
Dan Pearce
Cute sayings
I will only have you if you are sweeter than my solitude.
Warsan Shire
The only problem with seeing people you know is that they know you.
Brent Runyon
Naked lions are just as dangerous as elegantly dressed ones.
Susan Cain
People inspire you, or they drain you — pick them wisely.
Hans F. Hansen
I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.
Lord Byron
I owe my solitude to other people.
Alan Watts
2. Introvert loner quotes
People empty me. I have to get away to refill.
Charles Bukowski
Alone you’ll thrive. Alone you’ll feel alive.
Maxime Lagacé
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
I think it’s very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.
Oscar Wilde
Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.
Albert Einstein
The loner who looks fabulous is one of the most vulnerable loners of all.
Anneli Rufus
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
It’s not because I don’t want to look at you. It’s that I don’t want to be seen.
Jonathan Lethem
Solitude sayings
Solitude matters, and for some people, it’s the air they breathe.
Susan Cain
Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.
Pablo Picasso
I search for solitude and within that search I find “me.”
Miles Patrick Yonka
Introverts are collectors of thoughts, and solitude is where the collection is curated and rearranged to make sense of the present and future.
Laurie A. Helgoe
In solitude, listen to your heart, for at that moment, it speaks nothing but the truth.
Michael Bassey Johnson
Introverts live in two worlds: We visit the world of people, but solitude and the inner world will always be our home.
Jenn Granneman
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nobody enjoys the company of others as intensely as someone who usually avoids the company of others.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
3. Introvert vs. extrovert quotes
Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.
William S. Burroughs
Not every smiling face is truly happy; some are just introverts in disguise.
Fausat
Introverts think before they speak, not through speech.
Laurie Helgoe
Shyness is inherently painful; introversion is not.
Susan Cain
In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent.
Criss Jami
If you’re a true introvert, other people are basically energy vampires.
Amy Schumer
He always thinks because I’m reading, I’m not doing anything. There is no greater plague to an introvert than the extroverted.
Pierce Brown
Introverts enjoy people-watching. Extroverts enjoy people watching.
Jomny Sun
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
4. Famous introvert quotes
Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.
Plato
The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
Albert Einstein
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, the sky.
Audrey Hepburn
When I was young, all I wanted and expected from life was to sit quietly in some corner doing my work without the public paying attention to me.
Albert Einstein
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Abraham Lincoln
From famous authors
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
Henry David Thoreau
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
I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but like everybody else, it must be in my own way.
Jane Austen
Matthew, much to his own surprise, was enjoying himself. Like most quiet folks he liked talkative people when they were willing to do the talking themselves and did not expect him to keep up his end of it.
L. M. Montgomery, “Anne of Green Gables”
Because I rant not, neither rave of what I feel, can you be so shallow as to dream that I feel nothing?
R.D. Blackmore, “Lorna Doone”
5. Deep introvert quotes
Loneliness is failed solitude.
Sherry Turkle
The most introspective of souls are often those that have been hurt the most.
Shannon Alder
You may think I’m small, but I have a universe inside my mind.
Yoko Ono
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
Aristotle
There are times I wish I was a master magician so I could disappear into the folds of time.
Jaeda DeWalt
Inside was where she lived, physically and mentally. She resided in the horn of plenty of her own prodigious mind, fertilized by inexhaustible curiosity.
Tim LaHaye
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world.
Bill Bullard
6. Being an introvert is good quotes
Art starts alone — and convinces society later.
Douglas Davis
The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.
Aldous Huxley
For an introvert his environment is himself and can never be subject to startling or unforeseen change.
Quentin Crisp
Introverts tend to be problem solvers, and because we’re comfortable being alone, we have more time to think.
Laurie Helgoe
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 themselves with, something to judge.
Paulo Coelho
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
Inspirational quotes
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
Carl Jung
Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.
Nikola Tesla
A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live.
Bertrand Russell
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
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
Quiet power sayings
Quiet people have the loudest minds.
Stephen Hawking
In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
Mahatma Gandhi
Don’t be fooled by my quiet exterior. It hides a wild mind and passionate heart.
John Mark Green
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
Introverts paradoxically pull away from culture and create culture.
Laurie Helgoe
You see things. You keep quiet about them and you understand.
Stephen Chbosky, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”
Beautiful quotes
Solitude has its own very strange beauty to it.
Liv Tyler
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
7. Introvert quotes about life
In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.
Albert Camus
True happiness is impossible without solitude.
Anton Chekhov
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
The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some it’s a Broadway spotlight, for others, a lamplit desk.
Susan Cain
Beware of those who seek constant crowds; they are nothing alone.
Charles Bukowski
Introverts crave meaning so party chitchat feels like sandpaper to our psyche.
Diane Cameron
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
Often we come home from a sharing session with a feeling that something precious has been taken away from us or that holy ground has been trodden upon.
Henri Nouwen
The introvert’s day quotes
Sometimes I just shut down and don’t talk to anyone for days. It’s nothing personal.
Sonya Teclai
I think a lot, but I don’t say much.
Anne Frank
For the introvert, conversation can be a very limited forum for self expression.
Laurie Helgoe
The day I began to live is the day I discovered being an introvert was awesome.
Maxime Lagacé
My idea of a fun night was diving into a massive pile of To Be Read books stacked near my dresser.
Jeff Sampson
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
Silence quotes
Silence is beautiful, not awkward. The human tendency to be afraid of something beautiful is awkward.
Elliot Kay
Introverts dislike small talk, but we are fluent in the language of ideas and dreams.
Michaela Chung
When introverts are in conflict with each other… it may require a map in order to follow all the silences, nonverbal cues and passive-aggressive behaviors!
Adam S. McHugh
Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent.
Napoleon Hill
For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating.
Jonathan Rauch
My imagination functions much better when I don’t have to speak to people.
Patricia Highsmith
8. Introvert quotes about love and relationships
Love is essential, gregariousness is optional.
Susan Cain
The highest form of love is to be the protector of another person’s solitude.
Rainer Maria Rilke
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
Introverts treasure the close relationships they have stretched so much to make.
Adam S. McHugh
It’s far better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone.
Marilyn Monroe
Sometimes I wonder if being an introvert is a curse. On one hand you find solace in your own company and never feel sad about being alone. And on the other hand, you are afraid to even express your feeling to one you love until there is nothing but regret is left.
Crestless Wave
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.
Drew Barrymore
About friendship
One genuine new relationship is worth a fistful of business cards.
Susan Cain
I want to be alone… with someone else who wants to be alone.
Dimitri Zaik
As an introvert, you crave intimate moments and deep connections — and those usually aren’t found in a crowd.
Jenn Granneman
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
9. Introvert quotes for Instagram
Use these short quotes and funny captions to liven up your social media posts and add personality to your online bio.
Short introvert quotes
I am a minimalist. I like saying the most with the least.
Bob Newhart
I don’t want to be alone. I want to be left alone.
Audrey Hepburn
To thine own self be true.
William Shakespeare
I restore myself when I’m alone.
Marilyn Monroe
My best acquaintances are those with whom I spoke no word.
Emily Dickinson
It is a joy to be hidden, and disaster not to be found.
D.W. Winnicott
I kinda live where I find myself.
Bob Dylan
A little hibernation is good for the mind.
Michaela Chung
While others chat, introverts listen, observe, analyze, and collect impressions.
Laurie Helgoe
A wise man once said nothing.
Proverb
There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.
Susan Cain
Please kindly go away, I’m introverting.
Beth Buelow
Kindly remove yourself from my personal space. Thanks.
Gemma Correll
Introvert captions and funny sayings
- Selectively introverted.
- I’m a social vegan. I avoid meet.
- My favorite party trick is not going.
- People… not a big fan.
- Somewhat functional introvert.
- Introverts do not call, we text.
- I’m not anti-social. I’m pro-solitude.
- Stay inside and ignore people.
- I wish more people were fluent in silence.
- I came, I saw, I left early.
- My superpower is disappearing.
- It’s way too people-y outside.
- Home is where the introvert is.
- If you see me in public, it’s not me.
- Go away I’m introverting.
- If I could unmeet some people, I would.
- Introverts unite separately in their own homes.
- Social distancing preferred.
- Introverted but willing to discuss cats.
We hope you enjoyed reading these introvert quotes and sayings. For more great quotes, check out the following lists: