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We moved from what cultural historians call a culture of character to a culture of personality. During the culture of character, what was important was the good deeds that you performed when nobody was looking. … But at the turn of the (20th) century, when we moved into this culture of personality, suddenly what was admired was to be magnetic and charismatic.

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Character

More quotes by Susan Cain

We've known about the transcendent power of solitude for centuries; it's only recently that we've forgotten it.

It’s never a good idea to organize society in a way that depletes the energy of half the population.

Our difficulty accepting impermanence is the heart of human suffering.

Our lives are shaped as profoundly by personality as by gender or race. And the single most important aspect of personality … is where we fall on the introvert-extrovert spectrum.

Solitude matters, and for some people it is the air that they breathe.

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Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

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The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman (1903)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.

Horace Mann Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Susan Cain (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.