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Famous Elaine N. Aron Quotes

“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.”

WantEnvyDecisionsSomethingTruthsWaking UpSensory Processing SensitivitySpsHigh Sensitivity
Book:The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
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“Our culture has an idea of competition in the pursuit of excellence that can make anyone not striving for the top feel like a worthless, non-productive bystander. This applies not only to one's career but even to one's leisure.”

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Book:The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
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“We make it especially hard for others to observe our trait when it means we are observing and not "behaving," at least at first. Further, we are so responsive to our environments that we can be something like chameleons when around others, doing whatever it takes to fit in.”

ObservationWhatever It TakesFitting InResponsivenessEnvironmentsSensory Processing SensitivityBehavingHigh SensitivityChameleons
Book:The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
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“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.”

CultureTraitsSensory Processing SensitivitySpsHigh SensitivitySocial FabricClint EastwoodMargaret MeadThe TerminatorGoldie Hawn
Book:The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
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“[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.”

SometimesTimeDanceFlexibilityIntrovertsSpsHigh SensitivityTurning InwardExtraverts
Book:The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
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