Enneagram Quotes

“The Enneagram is a tool that awakens our compassion for people just as they are, not the people we wish they would become so our lives would become easier.”
― Ian Morgan Cron, The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery

“The testimony of the greatest humans who have ever lived is that the way to make the most of ourselves is by transcending ourselves. We must learn to move beyond self-centeredness to make room within ourselves for others. When you transcend yourself, the fact will be confirmed by the quality of your life. We will attain – even if only momentarily – a transparency and a radiance of being which results from living both within and beyond yourself. This is the promise and the excitement of self-understanding.”
― Don Richard Riso

“Maybe there's no one right way to be a good person, and maybe there's no advisory board signing off on who does and doesn't deserve badges.”
― Hannah Paasch, Millenneagram: The Enneagram Guide for Discovering Your Truest, Baddest Self

“[T]he Enneagram is, at its most abstract, a universal mandala of the self—a symbol of each of us.”
― Don Richard Riso

“If you babble enneagram, I am a five. If you boast myers-briggs, I am an introvert-intuition-thinking-perceiving.”
― Santosh Kalwar

“In the course of working on ourselves, we learn in time that when we stay on the surface of ourselves, which is to say when we are identified with and operating from our outer shell—our personality—we suffer. The more asleep we are to the reality beneath our shells, the less we feel that life is fulfilling, meaningful, and pleasurable. Or, in the language of the enneagram, the more fixated we are, the less we partake of the loving nature of reality, for we have lost our connection with Holy Love. Our suffering is not the result of being alone or of being in the wrong relationship, is not because we don’t have enough money or because we have too much of it, or because of anything of the sort.

Nor is it because our outer surface doesn’t look as pretty as we think it should or because our personality isn’t as pleasant as we think it might be. We suffer because we are living at a distance from our depths—it’s as simple as that. The more our souls are infused with Being, the better we feel and the better life seems to us, no matter what our outer circumstances happen to be.”
― Sandra Maitri, The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul

“I often wonder whether the playground of the imagination is our truest space after all.”
― Hannah Paasch, Millenneagram: The Enneagram Guide for Discovering Your Truest, Baddest Self

“This invitation [to deny oneself] is less about depriving the self, and more about disowning, or renouncing a relationship with the part of ourself that is not what God created us to be.”
― Marilyn Vancil, Self to Lose - Self to Find: A Biblical Approach to the 9 Enneagram Types

“Choosing the good of all is always your highest calling, even if that means people don’t like you for it. Being liked is meaningless if real love is not at the heart of your purpose.”
― Sean Patrick Brennan, The Angel's Guide to Taking Human Form

“Social Nines can look like Type Threes because they work very hard and accomplish a lot without showing the stress of it. But they differ from Threes in that they are much more reluctant to be in the spotlight and they don’t support the group to create an image or to win admiration from others. They may also be mistaken for Twos because they are active in meeting the needs of others, but they have much less need for approval and appreciation than Twos, and are generally more emotionally steady.”
― Beatrice Chestnut, The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge

“Social Eights are more loyal, more overtly friendly, and less aggressive. They are helpful Eights—people who are nurturing, protective, and concerned with the injustices that happen to people. Male Social Eights can look like Type Nines, and female Social Eights may resemble Type Twos. However, these Eights can be distinguished from Nines and Twos because they act in more direct, powerful ways, engage more readily in conflict, and express more power and control in seeking to protect and support other people.”
― Beatrice Chestnut, The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge

“Our survival stories are often the passwords to our healing.”
― Hannah Paasch, Millenneagram: The Enneagram Guide for Discovering Your Truest, Baddest Self

“Fives have a limited, measured amount of energy for every day so they are careful about what they offer to others and when. It is extremely brave of them to show up for relationships because it costs them more than any other number.”
― Suzanne Stabile, The Path Between Us: An Enneagram Journey to Healthy Relationships

“God's image has been imprinted uniquely on each of us. In God's infinite creativity there are no duplicates; you are the only you there has ever been or ever will be.”
― Dick Staub, About You: Fully Human, Fully Alive

“Getting honest with your blind spots and the things you use to cope will allow you to walk through the world doing less harm to yourself and others.”
― Sarajane Case, The Honest Enneagram: Know Your Type, Own Your Challenges, Embrace Your Growth

“For a Five, feelings are a thing to be solved rather than experienced.”
― Hannah Paasch, Millenneagram: The Enneagram Guide for Discovering Your Truest, Baddest Self

“As Riso and Hudson say, you are invited to ABUNDANCE.

As *I* tell you now, you are invited to believe that your value is not in the mistakes you don't make.

You are invited to believe that you need shit, and it's okay to ask for it.

You are invited to believe that your feelings are valid and your identity is yours to build.

You are invited to believe that belonging is real and happiness is attainable.

You are invited to believe that you have what it takes to be a competent human in the world.

You are invited to believe that you are the source of your security. You are your own safety net.

You are invited to believe that your joy is meaningful and needed.

You are invited to believe that you can be both powerful and tender at once.

You are invited to believe that your opinion matters.

You are invited to believe that you are the point of you.”
― Hannah Paasch, Millenneagram: The Enneagram Guide for Discovering Your Truest, Baddest Self

“Shame tends to be an embodied distress that any of the nine types may experience from a regrettable action. But much of what motivates the actions of Heart types in particular is the relentless pursuit of alleviating the sadness of not having been able to internalize unconditional affirmation of their inherent value as young people. Paradoxically, the generalized sadness only grows the more each Heart type tries to satiate it with their personality coping strategies since these schemes push them further from their truest selves—the very parts that were left invalidated in childhood and remain invalidated with every egoic attempt to fix them.”
― Scott Allender, The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence: A Journey to Personal and Professional Success

“To take up one's cross is to proclaim, "My made-up self is dead to missing the mark of my original design. It has been crucified with Christ. I will not find real life apart from faith in the One who lives in me. The prideful, independent self of no use to God or to me, and I claim that it is no more,”
― Marilyn Vance, Self to Loser Self to Find