quiet-the-power-of-introverts-in-a-world-that-cant-stop-talking-susan-cain

making us calm or melancholic (stable
or neurotic introversion). Aristotle
noted that the melancholic temperament
was associated with eminence in
philosophy, poetry, and the arts (today
we might classify this as openness to
experience). The seventeenth-century
English poet John Milton wrote Il
Penseroso (“The Thinker”) and L’Allegro
(“The Merry One”), comparing “the
happy person” who frolics in the countryside
and revels in the city with “the
thoughtful person” who walks meditatively
through the nighttime woods and
studies in a “lonely Towr.” (Again,
today the description of Il Penseroso
would apply not only to introversion
but also to openness to experience and
neuroticism.) The nineteenth-century
German philosopher Schopenhauer
contrasted “good-spirited” people (energetic,
active, and easily bored) with
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