Famous ESTPs

ESTP

Alexander the Great

Greek king and undefeated general, student of Aristotle

[When advised that an enemy fortress would be impossible to capture:]
Alexander: "There is nothing impossible to him who will try."

[When he saw his father and some older men writing off a strong horse as 'untrainable' because it kept bolting:]
Alexander: "What an excellent horse they are losing because they are not bold enough to manage him. I will ride that horse, or I will pay the price of it."

[When asked how he acquired such a large empire at such a young age:]
Alexander: "I won over enemies by making them friends and then obligated them to me through benefaction."

Alexander: "I have never procrastinated about anything."

Plutarch: "Alexander was impatient and rash."

ESTP

Winston Churchill

U.K. Prime Minister and author

Churchill: "You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."

Churchill: "Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities."

Churchill: "The youths at the universities ... could pose you entrapping questions or give baffling answers. We never set much store by them or their affected superiority, remembering that they were only at their books, while we were commanding men."

[When a voter said that he would rather vote for the Devil than for Churchill:]
Churchill: "I understand. But in case your friend is not running, may I count on your support?"

Bernard Montgomery: "[I told Churchill] that I neither drank nor smoked and was 100 percent fit; he replied ... that he both drank and smoked and was 200 percent fit."

ESTP

Theodore Roosevelt

U.S. President (R)

Roosevelt: "[We must face life] with a high and resolute courage. ... Let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out."

Roosevelt: "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena."

Roosevelt: "[Even] if [the Man of Action] fails, at least [he] fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."

Roosevelt: "I have already lived and enjoyed as much life as any nine other men I have known."

Ernst Hanfstaengl: "[Roosevelt] had a vigor and courage, a vitality and familiarity with all manner of men, with a [direct] style of action and utterance."

ESTP

George S. Patton

World War II general

Patton: "A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied ten minutes later."

Patton: "Some goddamn fool once said that flanks have got to be secure. ... I don't agree with that. My flanks are something for the enemy to worry about, not me. Before he finds out where my flanks are, I'll be cutting the bastard's throat."

[Order from Eisenhower:]
"Bypass [the city of] Trier. It will take four divisions to capture it."
[Reply from Patton:]
"Have taken Trier with two divisions. What do you want me to do? Give it back?"

Patton: "When my troops captured their 200,000th prisoner, I wanted to take a picture of him. But they said that I couldn't because it would be humiliation of a prisoner of war to ... show his face. So maybe we will just take a picture of his ass."

Patton: "If everybody is thinking the same thing, then somebody isn't thinking."

ESTP

Andrew Jackson

U.S. President (D)

Jackson: "[I] have [often] found myself in difficult and trying situations, where prompt decision and energetic action were necessary."

[Friend from his youth:] "He was the most roaring, rolicking, game-cocking ... fellow that ever lived."

Steven J. Rubenzer: "[Jackson was a] forceful man of action who chose his own path. ... He liked to keep his options open, but he was not indecisive."

Steven J. Rubenzer: "He was active, energetic, and dynamic. ... He was both a man's man and a ladies' man."

ESTP

Franklin D. Roosevelt

U.S. President (D), married to Eleanor Roosevelt

Roosevelt: "We need to do things; not to talk about them."

Roosevelt: "The average citizen is a very gullible individual."

Roosevelt: "[I] need something physically active, with constant contact with all sorts of people in many kinds of places."

Roosevelt: "What, after all, does the country want? It wants ... less long-winded speaking."

Winston Churchill: "He is my truest friend, he has the farthest vision; he is the greatest man I have ever known."

ESTP

John F. Kennedy

U.S. President (D), married to Jacqueline Kennedy

Kennedy: "I'm an idealist without illusions."

Kennedy: "All my life I've known better than to depend on the experts."

Kennedy: "In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognize the opportunity."

Sean J. Savage: "Regardless of where or to whom [he] was speaking ... he focused on one overall ... theme: The need for the ... president to be a dynamic, active leader who could make bold [decisions]."

ESTP

Douglas MacArthur

U.S. general

MacArthur: "Rules are mostly made to be broken."

MacArthur: "I had always loved athletics and the spirit of competition moved me to participate in as many sports as possible."

MacArthur: "[Pacifism does] not insure [a nation] peace or immunity from national insult. ... Any nation which would keep its self-respect must be prepared to defend itself."

General Menoher: "MacArthur is the bloodiest fighting man in this army. ... At every advance MacArthur ... will go forward with the first line."

ESTP

Donald Trump

U.S. President (R), married to Melania Trump, father of Ivanka Trump

Trump: "I don't make deals for the money. I have more than enough. I do it to do it."

Trump: "I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That's where the fun is."

Trump: "What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate."

[On her father's parenting style:]
Ivanka Trump: "[He] would throw us in at the deep end and take great pride in watching us make it safely to the other side."

ESTP

James Randi

Debunker of paranormal claims

Randi: "The average person out there doesn't realize how easily they can be deceived by a clever operator."

Randi: "I know two things with great certainty: How to fool people, and more importantly, how they fool themselves."

Randi: "[Scientists are susceptible to trickery because] the con man is a very good provider of information. He supplies lots of data ... but it's false data. Scientists aren't used to that scenario."

Penn Jillette: "James Randi is my hero. James Randi is the modern Houdini, except better."

Roger Ebert: "[Houdini] offered rewards, never collected, for any 'supernatural' act he could not explain. ... Randi carries on in the same tradition."

ESTP

Arthur Conan Doyle

Author of 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'

Doyle: "I [am] wild, full-blooded and a trifle reckless."

Doyle: "Any truth is better than indefinite doubt."

Doyle: "[In my youth] I had an eager nature which missed nothing in the way of fun [and] had a great capacity for enjoyment."

Doyle: "[As a boy] I ... went out of my way to do really mischievous and outrageous things simply to show that my spirit was unbroken."

[Inscription on his tombstone:] "Steel true. Blade straight. Arthur Conan Doyle."

ESTP

Ernest Hemingway

Author of 'The Sun Also Rises'

Hemingway: "In order to write about life, you must first live it!"

Hemingway: "Learning to ... live completely in the very second of the present with no before and no after is the greatest gift [one] can acquire."

Hemingway: "There isn't any symbolism [in my writing]. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. ... All the symbolism that people [find] is shit."

Hemingway: "Heaven would be ... two lovely houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on nine different floors."

ESTP

Epicurus

Greek philosopher

Epicurus: "We have been born once and cannot be born a second time. [Don't postpone] your happiness. Life is wasted by delaying."

Epicurus: "It is pointless for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself."

Epicurus: "[The] nature of the soul makes us endlessly greedy for variations in lifestyle."

Epicurus: "The reason people become friends is to gain advantages."

Epicurus: "There never was such a thing as absolute justice, but only agreements made ... among men."

ESTP

Stephen R. Covey

Author of 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People'

Covey: "Let natural consequences teach responsible behavior."

Covey: "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

Covey: "People don't do anything until they experience pain. It's too bad the pain of conscience isn't sufficient, but it isn't. ... It takes the pain of circumstance."

Robert C. Solomon: "Stephen Covey [distinguishes between] the 'Important' and the 'Urgent' ... pointing out ... that [we are] moved by the urgency rather than the importance of things."

Todd Cherches: "Both Carnegie and Covey's ... principles [have] been minimized by elitists as being ... 'common sense.' [But] as the saying goes, common sense is not so common."

ESTP

Dale Carnegie

Author of 'How to Win Friends & Influence People'

Carnegie: "Enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success."

Carnegie: "I deal with the obvious. I present, reiterate, and glorify the obvious - because the obvious is what people need to be told."

Paul Graham: "You need [Carnegie's book] to succeed in business, as well as in life."

Warren Buffett: "[Carnegie's teachings] changed my life."

[Following an incident where Dick Cheney accidentally shot a friend:]
Barack Obama: "Dick Cheney ... is very busy working on his memoirs, tentatively titled, 'How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People.'"

ESTP

L. Ron Hubbard

Founder of the Church of Scientology

Hubbard: "The one impulse in man which cannot be erased is his impulse toward freedom."

Hubbard: "Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today, and you make your tomorrow."

Hubbard: "I have lived no cloistered life and hold in contempt the wise man who has not lived."

Hubbard: "If a man wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."

Lyon Sprague de Camp: "When he wanted ... something from somebody he could put on a good charm act."

ESTP

George W. Bush

U.S. President (R), son of George H.W. Bush, married to Laura Bush, brother of Jeb Bush

Bush: "[Drinking] magnified aspects of my personality that probably don't need to be larger than they are - made me more funny, more charming ... and more irrepressible."

Bush: "[Under my presidency] America will never seek a permission slip."

Condoleezza Rice: "[Bush] has the kind of intellect that goes straight to the point. You can get a bunch of academics in a room and they can talk for three hours and never actually get to the point. [He will] challenge [them] to get to the point."

Dan P. McAdams: "He makes impulsive, bold decisions and never looks back."

ESTP

Lyndon B. Johnson

U.S. President (D)

Johnson: "Believe in the argument you're advancing. If you don't ... the other person will sense that something isn't there, and no [amount] of reasoning ... will win your case for you."

Johnson: "I've slept with more women by accident than [John F. Kennedy] has slept with by design."

Robert Novak: "He can be as gentle and solicitous as a nurse, but as ruthless and deceptive as a riverboat gambler."

Franklin D. Roosevelt: "This boy Lyndon Johnson one day can wind up being the President of the United States. He's got it." [Upon meeting Johnson in 1937.]

ESTP

Malcolm X

Radical civil rights activist

Malcolm X: "No one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."

Malcolm X: "I listen closely to the sound of a man's voice when he's speaking. I can hear sincerity."

Malcolm X: "The more [a] man yelps, the more I know I have struck a nerve."

Malcolm X: "Any time you find someone more successful than you are ... you know they're doing something that you aren't."

ESTP

Glenn Beck

Conservative TV host and author

Beck: "If there's one thing that liberals, conservatives, communists, capitalists, vegetarians, teetotalers, pet lovers, bureaucrats, Republicans, and Democrats can all agree on, it's telling you how you should live your life."

Beck: "[The times] are so serious now that I find myself ... saying things that are sometimes pretty scary, but nobody else is willing to say them."

Beck: "I hardly ever read instruction manuals. I mean, just put everything where it looks like it goes and call it a day."

ESTP

Thomas Edison

Inventor and businessman

Edison: "Restlessness is discontent - and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I will show you a failure."

Edison: "Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits."

Edison: "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

Francis Arthur Jones: "He is astonishingly practical in all his ideas."

Reese Jenkins: "He had a down-to-earth manner and a frank opinion on most matters."

Steve Jobs: "Maybe Thomas Edison did a lot more to improve the world than Karl Marx."

ESTP

Marquis de Sade

Philosopher and author

Sade: "Why complain of your fate when you could so easily change it?"

Sade: "[I have] as a tiny idiosyncrasy ... loving women perhaps a little too much."

Sade: "[This is] my guiding principle: Whenever justice has been denied me, I respond by taking matters into my own hands."

Sade: "I have ... a strong soul that has never known how to stoop and never will."

Sade: "Tyrants should learn ... not to [choose for victims men like me] whose penetrating gaze will reach down even unto their most secret thoughts."

Camille Paglia: "Properly read, Sade is funny. Satirizing Rousseau, point by point, he prefigures the theories of aggression in Darwin, Nietzsche, and Freud."

ESTP

Alfred Hitchcock

Filmmaker

Hitchcock: "[I am] challenged by the audience. They're saying to me, '[We] know what's coming next.' And I say, 'Do you?'"

Hitchcock: "I ... indulge very much in practical jokes, of a very high order. I [derive] great pleasure from it."

Hitchcock: "The films I've made [are] about ordinary people. ... I've always gone for average man, the ordinary individual, going through extraordinary experiences. ... Whether I want to or not, I seem to gravitate toward that."

Patrick McGilligan: "He shortened the name for friends and introductions. 'It's Hitch,' he drawled, relishing the trap about to be sprung, 'without the cock.'"

ESTP

Harry Houdini

Escape artist and debunker of paranormal claims

Houdini: "What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes."

Houdini: "[I never let] up for a moment. I always have on my mind the thought that next year I must do something greater, something more wonderful."

Houdini: "Things that seem wonderful to most men are the every-day commonplaces of my business."

Houdini: "My chief task has been to conquer fear."

Arthur Conan Doyle: "He had the essential masculine quality of courage to a supreme degree. Nobody has ever done ... such reckless feats of daring."

ESTP

Angelina Jolie

Actress, was married to Brad Pitt

Jolie: "I don't believe in guilt, I believe in living on impulse."

Jolie: "I never felt settled or calm. You can't really commit to life when you feel that."

Jolie: "If you ask people what they've always wanted to do, most people haven't done it."

Jolie: "I love being alive. And I love feeling free. If I can't have those things then I feel like a caged animal. ... I'd rather be dead."

Jolie: "I've come close to ... many dangerous things [in my life and taken] many chances ... too far."

Matt Damon: "She's a ballsy woman."

ESTP

Meryl Streep

Actress

Streep: "My success has depended wholly on putting things over on people."

Streep: "You just have to keep on doing what you do. ... Keep going. Start by starting."

Streep: "Instant gratification is not soon enough."

Streep: "It's amazing how much you can get if you ... demand it."

Streep: "Under-preparation ... instills fear, and fear is galvanizing. It makes you break out of yourself. If you're prepared, then you think you're ready, and if you think you're ready, then you're not ready."

ESTP

Jack Nicholson

Actor

Nicholson: "[I've] been a rogue most of my life."

Nicholson: "Early on, if I was alone two three nights in a row, I'd start writing poems about suicide."

Nicholson: "[I've always been] wild at heart."

Anjelica Huston: "[He has] charm but it is devious."

ESTP

Kevin Spacey

Actor

Spacey: "Many times ... I've made a decision to leave someplace, even though it's a risk, [because] it just feels right. It's been a real pattern in my life."

Spacey: "I enjoy [switching tracks] because it keeps giving me new stuff to live off and new experiences and new people to come in contact with."

David Fincher: "Kevin ... understands perception, how to ingratiate. He's also just naughty! ... He just has that twinkle in his eye!"

ESTP

Ben Affleck

Actor and director, was married to Jennifer Garner, dated Gwyneth Paltrow

Affleck: "I [am] nimble and open and dexterous."

Jennifer Garner: "He doesn't have trouble wiggling his way in anywhere. He is charm personified when he wants to be."

ESTP

Ryan Seacrest

Host of American Idol

Seacrest: "As opposed to sitting and waiting for something to happen, I love to ... go after it."

Seacrest: "I think one of the most interesting talents [you can have] is the ability to know what's next."

[Asked how to become successful:]
Seacrest: "Get [your foot] in the door. ... That's what I did. I worked for free at a radio station. ... And I remembered everyone's name and what they did and ... worked my way up."

Seacrest: "[Simon Cowell and I] can say anything we want to each other. ... Anything is open game between he and I."

ESTP

Madonna

Singer and provocateur, dated Prince

Madonna: "I'm tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay."

Madonna: "Better to live one year as a tiger than a hundred as sheep."

Madonna: "I stand for ... doing what you believe in and going after your dreams."

Madonna: "I pay attention to what's going on around me. I'm always looking for new energy, new talent."

Madonna: "I'm a man inside a woman's body."

Cher: "She is always riding the crest of the wave. She always saw trends way before anyone else."

ESTP

Amy Winehouse

Singer-songwriter

Winehouse: "I'm more of a boy than a girl."

Winehouse: "I don't take it personally when people write slurs about me. ... At least I'm making some copy."

Winehouse: "[People] love me because I'm a bigmouth."

ESTP

Anna Wintour

Editor of Vogue magazine

Wintour: "If a woman feels bad about herself [because she's comparing herself with models], then there's something more seriously wrong with that woman than the fashion industry."

Barbara Amiel: "She manages ... to be persuasively sexual ... when she dances, which she does with a vengeance and irritatingly well."

[Former assistant:] "Anna's not someone who takes you in hand. It's more she throws you in the water and you'll either sink or swim."

Forbes: "[She has] gained a reputation for being incredibly intimidating."

ESTP

Judi Dench

Actress

Dench: "[I do things that] push me to a kind of dangerous edge. There is something in me that needs that."

Dench: "I think it is our business to do as many things as we can."

Dench: "I like to do something that's not expected, or predictable."

[Asked why she doesn't read her scripts:]
Dench: "I know [acting] is about preparation for a lot of people, but I like to feel real fear."

ESTP

Helen Mirren

Actress

Mirren: "Very often I've done the unexpected just to shake things up a bit."

Mirren: "I still have a gypsy sense of adventure. I don't think I have slept in the same bed for more than three or four months my whole life."

Mirren: "I decided to get a tattoo because it was the most shocking thing I could think of doing."

Mirren: "You are what other people think you are. You can't avoid that."

The Guardian: "As a younger actress ... she had a reputation as an intensely competitive force."

ESTP

Glenn Close

Actress

Close: "[Women are criticized when they are] very strong and very direct. ... [Both] men and women like women who are a little bit more apologetic and feminine, rather than [women like me who] own their position and go for it."

Close: "People look at me and I know what they're thinking: 'Tough, demanding, bitch.'"

Jason Leroy: "She has long been perceived as an intimidating woman."

Decca Aitkenhead: "She is ... in many ways quite like a typical male interviewee."

ESTP

Camilla Parker Bowles

U.K. royal, married to King Charles

[Introducing herself to King Charles in 1970:]
Camilla: "My great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-grandfather - so how about it?"

Roger Coverly: "[Growing up, Camilla] was a regular tomboy with an extrovert personality [and] she was the focus of attention."

David Yelland: "She has the [public] image of an old-fashioned person from a distant era. Having met her I know she's not. She's bright, switched on and tuned in to the modern world."

Daily Mail: "She cannot stand the thought of being ordered to take a more prominent role in public life."

ESTP

Mila Kunis

Actress, married to Ashton Kutcher

Kunis: "I'm not boring to be around. Something will always happen."

Kunis: "When I got into acting, I lied and told the studio that I was 18. ... Before that, I worked illegally in a souvenir stand."

Kunis: "A lot of [the industry] is lies, smoke and mirrors, and I learned it at a very young age. ... They're gonna lie to me; I'll lie right back."

ESTP

Sasha Grey

Adult film actress

Grey: "Fuck the system. I subscribe to my own way of operating."

Grey: "I enjoy the challenge of proving people wrong."

Grey: "If I only concentrated on one thing, I would limit myself in life."

Grey: "Many people come to set with a premeditated routine. I enjoy being able to break them out of that frame of mind, and get an animalistic response out of my partner."

Rolling Stone: "[She has an] uber-alpha attitude."

Rolling Stone: "There are some interesting similarities [between Sasha Grey and Taylor Swift]: Incredibly precocious for their ages and really ... ambitious."

ESTP

Traci Lords

Adult film actress

Lords: "I'm very determined and ambitious and I know what I want."

Lords: "I think whenever you're unhappy with something, you shouldn't cry about it. ... You should change it."

Lords: "I try to keep people guessing."

Lords: "I believe that hunger - that brutal determination and take-no-prisoners attitude - is what helped me succeed."

Lords: "I am absolutely relentless in my pursuit of what I want."

Official Traci Lords Bio: "Traci Lords [was] making electronic music and spinning records long before Madonna ever got the idea. Traci was always way ahead of her time."

ESTP

James Deen

Adult film actor

Deen: "My name is James. I am a simple guy who likes to eat, sleep and watch tv. Oh yeah, I also bang chicks for a living."

Deen: "I've always been hypersexual."

Bret Easton Ellis: "I get the humor, the irony, the 'dumbness' ... of how he expresses himself in his blog or [on] Twitter. So what if he writes about wanting a burrito? What do you want him to be writing about?"

ESTP

Robin Thicke

Singer-songwriter

Thicke: "I hate being redundant and predictable."

Thicke: "I always try to get fresh inspiration from wherever I can. [I'm always] trying to mix it up and get new influences."

Thicke: "I just hate doing the same thing the same way every day."

Thicke: "[When I was young] I always wanted to impress and ... show off."

Thicke: "I'm just trying to enjoy life and not take it so seriously."

ESTP

Megan Fox

Actress

Fox: "I can be really funny and interesting and I can go toe-to-toe with anybody in a conversation."

Fox: "To be outspoken, or different at all, is a problem for women."

Fox: "When you think about it, we actors are kind of prostitutes. We get paid to feign attraction and love."

Fox: "I'm very confident in how I project my personality."

Fox: "My mom says I came out [of the womb] really ballsy."

ESTP

Milla Jovovich

Supermodel and actress

Jovovich: "I like to overwhelm myself. I can't live normally if I don't have 10,000 things to do."

Jovovich: "If something doesn't happen the way you want it, you have to try it again until it happens."

Jovovich: "[People find the] scandalous side of me entertaining!"

ESTP

Chloe Grace Moretz

Actress

Moretz: "[I am] someone who doesn't conform to the system."

Moretz: "[I'm] adventurous [and] spontaneous."

Moretz: "[I am] a go-getter and really competitive."

Moretz: "[My] goal is succeeding ... being number one. I'm very competitive ... always fighting to be the best at something."

The Telegraph: "[In person she] is fiercely confident and well poised, unfazed to the point of insouciance."

ESTP

Miley Cyrus

Actress and singer

Cyrus: "I'm more extreme and badass than most guys, but that doesn't make me a boy. ... I can bake a cupcake and then go play hockey."

Cyrus: "There's a line [to what I do]. ... I'm extreme but I'm logical. ... Even if my reason isn't reasonable to you, it's [still] reason."

Cyrus: "I don't want ... some prince dude to come save me. I don't need to be saved. ... I'm strong."

Cyrus: "Angelina Jolie [is] the same way I am. ... She's done a lot of things that people wouldn't understand. But that's what she wants to do."

Cyrus: "I'm honored to be [the] girl that gets people out of their comfort zone."

Elle Magazine: "She seems acutely aware of what she's doing, and how to command attention."

ESTP

Zooey Deschanel

Actress

Deschanel: "[My life] is exciting and fun and fast-moving."

Deschanel: "I'm blessed with a lot of energy and stamina. I can't stand sitting still."

Deschanel: "I love being busy, and I love having a lot on my plate. I prefer to have constant stimulation."

Deschanel: "I know you're not supposed to say [certain] things, but I [do so] anyway, because I don't listen to what 'they' say."

Deschanel: "As you go along, you will have certain opportunities, and it's your responsibility to take the opportunities. ... Being ready for ... opportunities is ... like a key to all the accomplishments that I've had."

Deschanel: "I've never been a fan of the five-year plan. 'Oh, by this age I have to be doing this and this and this and this and this.' There are no rules."

Amber O'Hearn: "[She] boasts an independent, sardonic sensibility that hints she's always got another trick ... up her sleeve."

ESTP

Bret Easton Ellis

Author of 'American Psycho'

Ellis: "My first books were about people who have a lot of money and the freedom that that money brings them."

Ellis: "Over-the-counter meds ... have devastated far more people I have known than pot or cocaine ever did."

Decca Aitkenhead: "He can be clever and engaged and funny and humane - or [he can be] cold to the point of cruel."