Isabel Myers Briggs Quotes & Sayings

Those mitigating circumstances could just as well be mentioned if the thinker thought it worth the trouble. From the standpoint of human relations it is worth vastly more than the trouble it takes. The little sympathy or appreciation, coming first, puts the thinkers in the same camp with the feeling types, and the feeling types' desire to stay in the same camp will keep them agreeing with the thinkers as far as possible. — Isabel Briggs Myers

The present Western civilization ... is dominated by the extravert viewpoint. There are plenty of reasons for this domination: extraverts are more vocal than introverts; they are more numerous, apparently in the ratio of three to one; and they are accessible and understandable, whereas the introverts are not readily understandable, even to each other, and are likely to be thoroughly incomprehensible to the extraverts. — Isabel Briggs Myers

You psychologists focus on what is wrong with people; I want to focus on what is right and what could be right. — Isabel Briggs Myers

The outside world can only trigger or block your experience of your true nature. Each time something beautiful takes your breath away, that's you experiencing yourself. Each time you fall in love with someone, that's you experiencing yourself. Each time a child's smile gives you unspeakable joy, that's you experiencing yourself. Your true nature is beautiful. Life is the art of rediscovering yourself, again and again, in different forms, celebrating, rejoicing, welcoming. You are beautiful. You are life itself. — Vironika Tugaleva

Betsy did not answer. She was a talker, her family always said, but sometimes when she most wanted to talk she couldn't say a word. — Maud Hart Lovelace

Enlightenment means that you're never the same. You move and shift as the quiescent state, in a body or out of it. And since the quiescent state is perpetual and endless ecstasy, therefore you are endless. — Frederick Lenz

For many Extraverts, "hell at a party" is "not being able to get in." Many introverts see it as "being there. — Isabel Briggs Myers

People will continue to search for answers to universal and perplexing problems. But to find meaningful answers, one must first know what questions to ask. — Jacque Fresco

You know the moment when fate plays a cruel joke on you, rips the rug out from beneath your feet and laughs at you after you've fallen flat on your hind end? This was like that moment. — Casey L. Bond

They [INTJs] are likely, however, to organize themselves out of a job. They cannot continually reorganize the same thing, and a finished product has no more interest. Thus, they need successive new assignments, with bigger and better problems, to stretch their powers. — Isabel Briggs Myers

Extraverts ... cannot understand life until they have lived it. Introverts ... cannot live life until they understand it. — Isabel Briggs Myers

But, finally, I just realized a few years ago that this is where I belonged. I mean everything I had was invested here, emotionally and every other way. And the country had invested enormously in me. — Robert MacNeil

By developing individual strengths, guarding against weaknesses, and appreciating the strengths of other types, life will be more amusing, more interesting, and more of a daily adventure than it could possibly be if everyone were alike. — Isabel Briggs Myers

The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands. — Leonardo Da Vinci

In teaching, the other main problem related to type is the students' interest. Intuitives and sensing types differ greatly in what they find interesting in any subject even if they like, that is, are interested in, the same subjects. Intuitives like the principle, the theory, the why. Sensing types like the practical application, the what and the how. — Isabel Briggs Myers

What children need is the conviction that satisfaction can and must be earned ... Spoiled children do not learn the must. — Isabel Briggs Myers

Although intelligence tests are usually speed tests for the sake of convenience, it is debatable whether speed has any rightful place in the basic concept of intelligence. — Isabel Briggs Myers

Whatever the circumstances of your life, the understanding of type can make your perceptions clearer, your judgements sounder, and your life closer to your heart's desire — Isabel Briggs Myers

We cannot safely assume that other people's minds work on the same principles as our own. All too often, others with whom we come in contact do not reason as we reason, or do not value the things we value, or are not interested in what interests us. — Isabel Briggs Myers

The best-adjusted people are the
'psychologically patriotic,' who are glad to be what they are. — Isabel Briggs Myers

Much seemingly chance variation in human behavior is not due to chance; it is in fact the logical result of a few basic, observable differences in mental functioning. — Isabel Briggs Myers

Conventional measures of mental ability, such as intelligence tests and scholarship, show some of the very highest records belong to INFP and INFJ types, who relegate thinking to last place or next to last. The preference for thinking appears to have far less intellectual effect than the preference for intuition, even in some technical fields, such as scientific research, where its influence was expected to be most important. — Isabel Briggs Myers

Famous INFPs include Isabel Myers (creator of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), St. John the disciple, Carl Rogers, Princess Diana, George Orwell, Audrey Hepburn, Fred Rogers, A.A. Milne, Helen Keller, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Julia Roberts, and William Shakespeare. — Molly Owens

When I quit all these things and said I didn't have any time, I meant I didn't have any time. — Sharon Olds

There is not much to be got anywhere in the world. It is filled with misery and pain; if a man escapes these, boredeom lies in wait for him at every corner. Nay more; it is evil which generally has the upper hand, and folly that makes the most noise. Fate is cruel and mankind pitiable. — Arthur Schopenhauer

[On Jung's theory of psychological types:] My mother, Katharine C. Briggs, introduced it into our family and made it a part of our lives. She and I waited a long time for someone to devise an instrument that would reflect not only one's preference for extraversion or introversion but one's preferred kind of perception and judgment as well. In the summer of 1942 we undertook to do it ourselves. — Isabel Briggs Myers

The arguments of M. Despine,' who is the principal representative of this conception, appear all questionable to us. The ' Despine, Psychologie naturelU, l868, i., p. 490 et seq. ; Ktude scUn-tijique sur U somnambulisme, 1880. unity, the co-ordination of these muscular contractions, their complication, their unquestionable relation with tactile, auditive, or visual impressions, the electivity, the intelligence, in a word, so constantly manifested in them, appear to us, first of all, psychological phenomena. If there is no sensation, no thought connected with it, we do not understand how an arm can keep the delicate position we give it; can distinguish the touch of our hand, obey it, and not obey the touch of other hands; can repeat outward movements which can be known only by hearing or sight, etc. All these acts are conscious, the consequences of a sensation, of a vision, of a hearing, of a preference. — Anonymous

The visions of the INFJs tend to concern human welfare, and their contributions are likely to be made independent of a mass movement. — Isabel Briggs Myers

ISTPs have a vested interest in practical and applied science, especially in the field of mechanics. — Isabel Briggs Myers

Whatever any of them thinks about who she was, or what happened, or why people do what they do, is just absolutely fine & dandy, as long as they have a good time, do it with a kind heart, & pay homage in a respectful way to the Goddesses that have gone before them. — Kris Radish

DON'T BE A DISASTER AFTER THE DISASTER — Robert Winter

Introverted feeling types have a wealth of warmth and enthusiasm, but they may not show it until they know someone well. They wear their warm side inside, like a fur-lined coat. — Isabel Briggs Myers

Each memory rips through me, and although I stow myself against the emotions, I can't prevent the pain that accompanies each image. Pain for a love never acknowledged, pain for a friendship now gone. Pain for a loss I can't possibly endure. — Christine Fonseca