Understood as the pattern of behaviour, thought and mode of perception of reality that we use throughout time and circumstances, personality is one of the main elements that makes us be beings with our own distinctive characteristics , providing an enormous diversity with respect to how people can be. It is, to a great extent, something that makes us unique. And many people throughout history have made different observations about 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 sentences about personality , from different authors more or less known.

The most interesting personality phrases

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

1. The concept of psychosocial development basically refers to how a person’s interaction with his or her environment is given by fundamental changes in his or her personality. (Erik Erikson)

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

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

A 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. People’s moods are determined primarily by their genetic make-up and personality; secondly by their immediate context and only thirdly and fourthly by their worries, concerns and the like. (Daniel Kahneman)

Kahneman expresses the important role of personality as one of the main elements in explaining how we take things on an emotional level.

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 made throughout life, the way of thinking and interpreting the world and the way in which he feels and acts in it.

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

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

6. All too often some men sacrifice the self by being different. (Julian Marias)

Julián Marías, a 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 of our experiences merge into 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 more we go back in history, the more we will see personality disappear under the overtones of the collective. (Carl Jung)

Jung refers in this sentence to his concept of the collective unconscious, in which multiple facets of our being depend largely on the inheritance of culturally inherited patterns from our ancestors.

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

A 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 one 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 one of us has, no matter how much the results may be similar in form.

11. You can adorn yourself with someone else’s feathers, but you can’t 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 the wrong impression and forget what we really want in life.

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

This sentence lets us see that we don’t always let our authentic personality be seen, or that it can be seen badly socially in spite of being a part of our being.

13. We 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 ability, and personality traits can be very different regardless of cognitive ability. Furthermore, knowledge and intelligence are of no use if they do not have a 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 most ancient religious texts of India, lets us see the association that was already 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 be overcome, simply by the strength of their personality. This ability to persevere in spite of obstacles and setbacks is the quality that people most admire in others, and rightly so, because it is probably the most important trait not only for success in life but also for enjoyment. (Mihály Csikszentmihalyi)

This well-known psychologist shows us the importance that personality can have in order to get through any adverse situation.

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

The sense of humour also depends to a great extent on our personality, as this author reflects.

17. There’s a lot of different “Annes” in me. Sometimes I think that’s why I’m such a troublemaker. If I were just an “Anne”, it would always be much more comfortable, but then it wouldn’t be half as interesting. (Lucy Maud Montgomery)

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

18. The behaviour of a human being in sexual matters is often a prototype of all his 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. It is what you nourish within you that grows. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

How we act in the world depends largely on what we learn, which in turn also depends partly 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 in a good mood. (Mohsin Hamid)

This writer reflects that personality is made up of a great multitude of traits and that although it generates a generally stable way of doing our behaviour may vary on the basis of other circumstances.

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

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

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

This phrase speaks to us of three elements in which personality, especially with regard to sensitivity, plays a very important role.

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

A 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 bears our personal imprint. But the very moment we come to understand that our existence is fundamental to the existence of the universe, we will also realize, paradoxically, that our personality is wholly dependent on the existence of everything else. (Alan Watts)

Our way of being does not come out of nowhere: it depends to a large extent on 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)

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

26. The true “I” is who you are, not what they made of you. (Paulo Coelho)

Our personality can be hidden or smothered by the environment and environmental demands at specific times in our lives, but this does not mean that our personality has to be changed.

27. I like the expression “lost possibilities”. Being born means being forced to choose a time, a place and a life. Existing here, now, means losing the possibility of countless other potential personalities. (Hayao Miyazaki)

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

28. We continue to build our personality throughout our lives. If we knew ourselves, we would have to 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 form of foolishness that has occurred in all epochs, but which perhaps was never as widespread as it is today. (Marguerite Yourcenar)

Someone’s personality is important in explaining how they act or perceive the world, but it is still a part of our being.

30. Man’s personality 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 driving you crazy. (Sigmund Freud)

Freud’s phrase that refers to temperance and patience as elements of personality that allow us to value 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 for someone else, of a totally opposite personality. (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)

A sentence that shows how certain circumstances or moments can greatly vary our usual behaviour or way of thinking.

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 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 certain predisposition to be in a certain way. However, the role of life experience and learning are fundamental for this predisposition to be expressed or not, as well as to vary and reconstruct our way of understanding the world.

34. Hard living conditions are indispensable to bring out the best in the human personality. (Alexis Carrel)

It is often when someone faces moments of great harshness and difficulty that we can appreciate different aspects of their personality with more strength and authenticity.

35. Love is the only way to apprehend another human being in the depths of his personality. No one can be fully aware of the essence of another human being if he does not love him. Through the spiritual act of love one is able to see the essential traits and features in the person loved; and what is more, to see also his powers: what has not yet been revealed, what is to be shown. (Viktor Frankl)

Loving someone sincerely and without idealizing them allows us to see their way of being, the most fundamental aspects of that person (something that we would hardly perceive if that emotional connection did not exist) and can allow us to intuit aspects that they have not yet shown us.

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

We often feel an affinity for people with values and beliefs similar to our own. While personalities may be different, we can often get an idea of what someone is like from the people they choose to surround themselves with.

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

To truly love someone it is necessary to try to understand them to their fullest extent and to accept their personality and way of being without trying to change them.

38. I maintain that a very marked personality can influence the 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 because of genetic inheritance but also because of the modeling of behavior that children learn from their parents and that they can replicate in the future (or avoid), something that can have effects on their future offspring.

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

Phrase that personality is not created by appearance but in reality, appearance (what we show to the world) can be derived from 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 which 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 don’t like, instead of working with them. We need to accept ourselves as we are and learn to try to make ourselves a coordinated whole.

41. The personality “is” and “does”. Personality is what lies 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. Sickness 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 will to transform and evolve versus the preservation 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 pattern of behaviour, which sometimes contradict each other.

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

In this sentence, Millon establishes a parallelism between the immune system and the personality, both systems protecting the well-being and health of the subject.

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

A phrase that reflects that simple personality is not enough to achieve our goals, but that real drive and action is needed to achieve them.

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

A phrase that reflects the reality of most people: we must be ourselves but at the same time try not to offend or harm others.

46. The personality of the so-called psychopath is another example of the permanent loss of the need for love. One way of understanding 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.

47. The existence of personality, freedom and property is not due to the fact that men have made laws. On the contrary, it is the pre-existence of their personality, freedom, and property that determines whether men can make laws. (Frédéric Bastiat)

Phrase that establishes that it is the freedom and acceptance of the different ways of being and doing in the world that has allowed us to generate a series of laws to regulate our behavior (and not vice versa).

48. Personality is the difference between a person’s inside and outside. (Jonathan Safran Foer)

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

49. The most seductive thing about 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 wonder what it was that the artist wanted to capture, what sparked that act of creativity and what kind of person could have produced it.

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

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