David Keirsey Quotes

United States, Philologist
August 31, 1921 – July, 30, 2013.

David West Keirsey (/ˈkɜːrziː/;) was an American psychologist, a professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton, and the author of several books. In his most popular publications, Please Understand Me (1978, co-authored by Marilyn Bates) and the revised and expanded second volume Please Understand Me II (1998), he laid out a self-assessed personality questionnaire, known as the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, which links human behavioral patterns to four temperaments and sixteen character types. Both volumes of Please Understand Me contain the questionnaire for type evaluation with detailed portraits and a systematic treatment of descriptions of temperament traits and personality characteristics. With a focus on conflict management and cooperation, Keirsey specialized in family and partnership counseling and the coaching of children and adults.

Also known as Professor

You want to be the first to do something. You want to create something. You want to innovate something...I often think of Edison inventing the light bulb. That's what I want to do. I want to drive over the bridge coming out of New York there and look down on that sea of lights that is New Jersey and say, `Hey, I did that!'

David Keirsey
Our attempts to reshape others may produce change, but the change is distortion rather than transformation.

David Keirsey
- May
- Produce
- Distortion

Artisans ought to be enjoyed for what they are instead of condemned for what they are not, something that can also be said of the other three temperaments.

David Keirsey
- Said
- Enjoyed
- Temperament
Whether at home or at work, ISTJs are nothing if not reliable, particularly when it comes to inspecting the people and things in their jurisdiction-quietly seeing to it that uniform quality of product is maintained, and that those around them uphold certain standards of attitude and conduct.

David Keirsey
- People
- Home
- Quality
If you do not want what I want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong. Or if my beliefs are different from yours, at least pause before you set out to correct them. Or if my emotion seems less or more intense than yours, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel other than I do. Or if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, please let me be. I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up trying to change me into a copy of you.

David Keirsey
- Trying
- Action
- Emotion