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The 50 best phrases of Personality and Temperament

The 50 best phrases of Personality and Temperament

March 28, 2024

Understood as the pattern of behavior, thought and mode of perception of reality that we use through time and circumstances, the personality is one of the main elements that makes us be beings with their own distinctive characteristics , providing a huge diversity regarding how people can be. It is, to a large extent, something that makes us unique. And there are many people who throughout history have made different observations on this aspect of our being.

Taking into account that it is a very interesting concept and studied for years by psychology and philosophy, throughout this article we will see a selection of phrases about personality , from different authors more or less known.


  • Related article: "The main theories of personality"

The most interesting phrases about personality

These phrases about personality reflect the way in which we have been reflecting on this concept through history.

1. The concept of psychosocial development refers basically to how the person's interaction with their environment is given by fundamental changes in their personality. (Erik Erikson)

Erikson reflects in this sentence the fact that personality development explains how we relate to and relate to the environment.

  • Maybe you're interested: "Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development"

2. The variety of individual personalities is the greatest fortune in the world. (Julian Huxley)

Phrase that pushes us to appreciate the richness of diversity in terms of ways of interpreting the world as something positive that allows us to grow and learn.


3. The mood of the people is determined mainly by their genetic makeup and personality; secondly for its immediate context and only in third and fourth place for concerns, concerns and other things like that. (Daniel Kahneman)

Kahneman expresses the important role of personality as one of the main elements when it comes to explaining how we take things emotionally.

4. There is no separation of mind and emotions; Emotions, thoughts and learning are related. (Eric Jensen)

In this sentence we observe that in the personality of someone converges the learning carried out throughout the whole life, the way of thinking and interpreting the world and the way in which it feels and acts in it.

5. It is a duty of man to undertake the conquest of his personality; it is necessary that their development be their own work. (Pierre-Simon Ballanche)

We must not force ourselves to be in one way or another by what others say. We have to be who we are and who we are.


6. Too often some men sacrifice being to be different. (Julián Marías)

Julián Marías, disciple of José Ortega y Gasset, makes us reflect on those people who, in order to fit in with the rest, eliminate or inhibit their personality.

7. All our experiences are based on our personality. Everything that has happened to us is an ingredient. (Malcolm Little)

Malcolm Little, also known as Malcolm X, reflects on how what we live contributes to form our way of perceiving and dealing with the world .

8. The further we go back in history, the more we will see the personality disappear under the collective superfaces. (Carl Jung)

Jung makes reference in this phrase to his concept of collective unconscious, in which multiple facets of our being depend to a great extent on the inheritance of culturally inherited patterns of our ancestors.

9. Personality is to man what perfume is to flower. (Charles M. Schwab)

Phrase that highlights the role of personality as an element that makes us distinctive and unique.

10. The value of a phrase is in the personality of the person who says it, because nothing new can be said by a man or a woman. (Joseph Conrad)

This phrase expresses that what gives value to things are the intentions and the way of seeing and doing them that each of us has, however much the results may be similar in form.

11. You can decorate yourself with another's feathers, but you can not fly with them. (Lucian Blaga)

Being authentic and accepting our personality and way of being is what will make us live a happy and authentic life. Finger being like other people only leads us to give an erroneous impression and to forget what we really want in life.

12. Personality is a very mysterious thing. A man can not always be esteemed for what he does. You can abide by the law and yet be useless. You can break the law to be good. It can be bad without having to do anything bad. You can commit a sin against society and yet realize through it your true perfection. (Oscar Wilde)

This phrase lets us see that we do not always show our authentic personality , or that this can be socially disregarded despite being a part of our being.

  • Related article: "Oscar Wilde's 60 Best Phrases"

13We must be careful not to make the intellect our god: it is of course a powerful muscle, but it has no personality. (Albert Einstein)

Personality is not necessarily linked to intellectual capacity, personality traits may be very different independently of cognitive ability. In addition, knowledge and intelligence are useless if they have no purpose.

14. The attractiveness and magnetism of man's personality is the consequence of his inner radiance. (Yajurveda)

This fragment of the Yajurveda, one of the four Vedas and one of the oldest religious texts in India, lets us see the association that was then given to the personality with our interior and its expression in the physical environment.

15. We all know individuals who can transform desperate situations into challenges to overcome, simply by the strength of their personality. This ability to persevere despite obstacles and setbacks is the quality that people most admire in others and with justice, because it is probably the most important feature not only to succeed in life but also to enjoy it. (Mihály Csikszentmihalyi)

This well-known psychologist tells us the importance that the personality can have to get ahead of any adverse situation.

16. Nothing shows our character as clearly as the thing that makes us laugh. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

The sense of humor It also depends to a large extent on our personality, as this author reflects.

17. There are a lot of different "Annes" in me. Sometimes I think that's why I'm such a problematic person. If I were just an "Anne", it would always be much more comfortable, but then it would not be half as interesting. (Lucy Maud Montgomery)

This writer made reference to the character of a series of novels that she made, showing the multiplicity and sometimes apparent contradiction between the multiple facets of our personality through the different moments lived.

18. The behavior of a human being in sexual matters is often a prototype of all other modes of reaction in life. (Sigmund Freud)

The father of psychoanalysis reflects how personality can also be reflected in a prototypical way in the way we have relationships.

19. What you feed within you is what grows. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Our way of acting in the world depends to a great extent on what we learn, something that in turn also depends in part on what we focus our attention on. Thus, our personality shapes our action in the world and vice versa.

20. I believe that personality is not a unitary notion. We do not have a personality but a constellation of facets: that is why we can respond to a provocation in a very violent way when we are in a bad mood and be more peaceful when we are good. (Mohsin Hamid)

This writer reflects that the personality is conformed by a great multitude of traits and that although it generates a way of making generally stable our behavior can vary based on other circumstances.

21. It is the more or less stable and lasting organization of the character, temperament, intellect and physical of a person, which determines its unique adaptation to the environment. (Hans Eysenck)

This well-known psychologist Define the personality in this way, taking into account the different elements of internal character that configure it.

22. The human being is what is to gather in him the ability to think, the ability to feel and the ability to act. Our emotions, therefore, dignify us. (Karina Zegers)

This phrase tells us of three elements in which the personality, especially in regard to sensitivity, has a very important role.

23. If love hinders the development of my free personality, it is preferable to be alone and free. (Walter Riso)

Phrase that refers to the fact that many people try to inhibit their personality in order to satisfy their partner. However, a relationship based on respect and sincerity will let both people be as they really are.

24. The whole world carries our personal imprint. However, at the very moment when we come to understand that our existence is fundamental to the existence of the universe, we will also realize, paradoxically, that our personality depends completely on the existence of everything else. (Alan Watts)

Our way of being does not come from nothing: it depends on a large part of what we learn throughout our lives and what we inherit from our ancestors.

25. Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality in the world in which he lives. (Amy Lowell)

Phrase that expresses that through art we can express what we carry inside us, our way of seeing and interpreting the world.

26. The real me is the one you are, not what they made of you. (Paulo Coelho)

Our personality can be hidden or suffocated by the environment and environmental demands at specific moments of our lives, but this does not mean that our personality has to have changed.

27. I like the expression "lost possibilities". Being born means being obliged to choose an era, a place and a life.To exist here, now, means to lose the possibility of innumerable other potential personalities. (Hayao Miyazaki)

Everything we do, everything we live and everything we decide ends up shaping our future . Our current way of being is the product of a series of situations, and there may have been a great variety of possible outcomes different from the current one.

28. We continue to build our personality all our lives. If we knew ourselves, we should die. (Albert Camus)

This phrase reflects that we are living beings in continuous evolution, being able to modify different aspects of our way of being to a greater or lesser extent at all times.

29. The cult of personality is a way of foolishness that has occurred in all ages, but perhaps was never as widespread as today. (Marguerite Yourcenar)

The personality of someone is important to explain how the world acts or perceives, but it is still part of our being.

30. The personality of man determines in advance the measure of his possible fortune. (Arthur Schopenhauer)

Our way of being and acting in the world can lead us to different paths and destinations.

31. The scale of your personality is determined by the size of the problem that is capable of getting you out of your box. (Sigmund Freud)

Phrase of Freud that refers to temperance and patience as personality elements that allow us to assess the importance of problems and our resources to solve them.

32. There are times when I am so different from myself that I could be taken by someone else, of a totally opposite personality. (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)

Phrase that shows how certain circumstances or moments can vary greatly our behavior or habitual thinking.

  • Related article: "The 70 Most Famous Phrases of Jean-Jacques Rousseau"

33. We are all born with a unique genetic map, which establishes the basic characteristics of our personality, as well as our physical health and our appearance ... And yet, we all know that life experiences change us. (Joan D. Vinge)

This writer expresses something real: part of our most basic characteristics are going to be inherited from our ancestors, having a predisposition to be in a certain way. But nevertheless, the role of life experience and learning they are fundamental for this predisposition to be expressed or not, as well as to vary and reconstruct our way of understanding the world.

34. The harsh conditions of life are indispensable to get the best out of the human personality. (Alexis Carrel)

Often it is when someone faces moments of great hardness and difficulty when with more strength and authenticity we can appreciate different aspects of their personality.


35. Love is the only way to apprehend another human being in the depths of his personality. Nobody can be totally aware of the essence of another human being if he does not love him. By the spiritual act of love one is able to see the essential traits and traits in the loved one; and what is more, also see their powers: what has not yet been revealed, what has to be shown. (Viktor Frankl)

Loving someone sincerely and without idealizing allows us to see their way of being, the most fundamental aspects of that person (something we would hardly perceive if there was no such emotional connection) and can allow us to intuit aspects that have not yet shown us.


36. If you want to know the personality of a man, look at his friends. (Japanese proverb)

We often feel affinity for people with values ​​and beliefs similar to ours. While personalities may be different, we can often get an idea of ​​how someone is by the people they choose to surround themselves with.

37. Without understanding there can be no love. The personality of each person is constituted by physical, emotional and social conditions. With understanding you can not hate anyone, not even cruel people, but you can help them transform their physical, emotional and social conditions. (Thich Nhat Hanh)

To truly love someone it is necessary to try to understand him in all his extension and to accept his personality and way of being without trying to change him.

38. I argue that a strong personality can influence descendants for generations. (Beatrix Potter)

The writer and creator of Peter Rabbit expressed in this sentence that someone's personality can influence their offspring. Not only for the genetic inheritance but also for the modeling of the behavior that the children learn from their parents and that in turn can replicate in the future (or avoid), something that may have effects on their future offspring.


39. Bones, meat and legal statistics are the garments worn by the personality, not the other way around. (Robert Maynard Pirsig)

Phrase that the personality does not create the appearance but in fact, the appearance (what we show to the world) can be derived from the personality.

40. The dissociated parts of the personality are not separate from the identity or personality of a single body, but rather are parts of a single individual that are not yet functioning together in a smooth, coordinated and flexible manner. (Suzette Boon)

This psychologist tells us that we often try to ignore the parts of our personality that we do not like, instead of working with them. It is necessary to accept oneself as it is and learn to try to make ourselves a coordinated whole.

41. The personality "is" and "does". The personality is what is hidden behind specific acts and within the individual. (Gordon Allport)

This American psychologist reflects that personality is part of who we are and that explains much of our habitual behavior .

42. Illness is the fruit of a conflict between the soul and the personality. The soul represents our transcendent orientation, and the personality represents the immanent interests. The conflict between them dramatizes the struggle between the desire for transformation and evolution in the face of conservation and resistance to learning, between the desire for growth on the one hand and the desire for well-being on the other. (Eduardo H. Grecco)

This phrase reflects the existence of a conflict between the need to change and the need to maintain a stable behavior pattern, which sometimes contradict.

43. Personality is the psychological equivalent of the immune system. (Theodore Millon)

In this sentence Millon establishes a parallelism between the immune system and personality, being both systems that protect the welfare and health of the subject.

44. A man of personality can formulate ideals, but only a man of character can achieve them. (Herbert Read)

Sentence that reflects that the simple personality is not enough to reach our goals, but it is necessary real push and action to achieve them.

45. The art of living consists in preserving our personality without society being uncomfortable. (Angel Ganivet)

Phrase that reflects the reality of most people: we must be ourselves but at the same time try not to cause an offense or harm to others.

46. ​​The personality of the so-called psychopath is another example of the permanent loss of love needs. One way to understand this personality dysfunction is that people who lacked love in the first months of their lives have simply lost that desire forever, as well as the ability to give and receive affection. (Abraham Maslow)

Maslow expresses the importance of early experiences and the perception of love and affection as a fundamental basis in the formation of the personality.

  • Maybe you're interested: "Maslow's Pyramid: the hierarchy of human needs"

47. The existence of personality, liberty and property is not due to the fact that men have passed laws. On the contrary, the preexistence of his personality, freedom and property is what determines that men can make laws. (Frédéric Bastiat)

Phrase that states that freedom and acceptance of the different ways of being and doing in the world are what have allowed us to generate a series of laws to regulate our behavior (and not the other way around).

48. Personality is the difference between the interior and exterior of a person. (Jonathan Safran Foer)

This phrase identifies the personality as the link between what we are internally and what we express abroad.

49. The most seductive thing in art is the personality of the artist himself. (Paul Cézanne)

Regardless of the beauty of the work, often when we look at a work of art we ask ourselves what the artist wanted to capture, what awakened that act of creativity and what kind of person could produce it.

50. Find yourself and be yourself; Remember that there is no one like you. (Dale Carnegie)

This last phrase reminds us of the importance of being authentic and allowing us to express ourselves as we are, accepting our own uniqueness.


What's Your Type? | Jean Kummerow | TEDxGrinnellCollege (March 2024).


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