M. Scott Peck Quotes

94 Sourced Quotes

Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity.

M. Scott Peck
Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because when we truly see this truth we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult, once we truly understand and accept it, then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

M. Scott Peck
An unconscious, gentle process whereby people who want to be loving attempt to be so by telling little white lies, by withholding some of the truth about themselves and their feelings in order to avoid conflict. Pseudocommunity is conflict-avoiding; true community is conflict-resolving.

M. Scott Peck
The journey of life is not paved in blacktop; it is not brightly lit, and it has no road signs. It is a rocky path through the wilderness.

M. Scott Peck
We learn what is significantly new only through adventures. However, going into the unknown is invariably frightening.

M. Scott Peck
Love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.... Love is as love does. Love is an act of will — namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.

M. Scott Peck
When we avoid the legitimate suffering that results from dealing with problems, we also avoid the growth that problems demand from us.

M. Scott Peck
Human beings are poor examiners, subject to superstition, bias, prejudice, and a profound tendency to see what they want to see rather than what is really there.

M. Scott Peck
Wise people learn not to dread but actually to welcome problems and actually to welcome the pain of problems.

M. Scott Peck
Consciousness and Healing To proceed very far through the desert, you must be willing to meet existential suffering and work it through. In order to do this, the attitude toward pain has to change. This happens when we accept the fact that everything that happens to us has been designed for our spiritual growth.

M. Scott Peck
The key to community is the acceptance, in fact the celebration of our individual and cultural differences. It is also the key to world peace

M. Scott Peck
All my life I used to wonder what I would become when I grew up. Then, about seven years ago, I realized that I was never going to grow up—that growing is an ever ongoing process.

M. Scott Peck
It is not easy for us to change. But it is possible and it is our glory as human beings

M. Scott Peck
Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the making of action in spite of fear.

M. Scott Peck
Love is too large, too deep ever to be truly understood or measured or limited within the framework of words.

M. Scott Peck
We skim over the surface thoughtlessly. But we must acknowledge that thinking well is a time-consuming process. We can't expect instant results. We have to slow down a bit, and take the time to contemplate, meditate, and even pray. It is the only route to a more meaningful and efficient existence.

M. Scott Peck
Life is complex. Each one of us must make his own path through life. There are no self-help manuals, no formulas, no easy answers. The right road for one is the wrong road for another.

M. Scott Peck
If we know exactly where we're going, exactly how to get there, and exactly what we'll see along the way, we won't learn anything.

M. Scott Peck
Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.

M. Scott Peck
The act of loving is an act of self-evolution even when the purpose of the act is someone else's growth.

M. Scott Peck
Listening well is an exercise of attention and by necessity hard work. It is because they do not realize this or because they are not willing to do the work that most people do not listen well.

M. Scott Peck
We cannot solve a problem by saying, "It's not my problem." We cannot solve a problem by hoping that someone else will solve it for us. I can solve a problem only when I say, "This is my problem and it's up to me to solve it."

M. Scott Peck
Evil people hate the light because it reveals themselves to themselves. They hate goodness because it revels their badness. They will destroy the light, the goodness, the love in order to avoid the pain of self-awareness.

M. Scott Peck
It is our task-our essential, central, crucial task-to transform ourselves from mere social creatures into community creatures.

M. Scott Peck
If your goal is to avoid pain and escape suffering, I would not advise you to seek higher levels of consciousness or spiritual evolution.

M. Scott Peck
The symptoms and the illness are not the same thing. The illness exists long before the symptoms. Rather than being the illness, the symptoms are the beginning of its cures. The fact that they are unwanted makes them all the more a phenomenon of grace-a gift of god, a message from the unconscious, if you will, to initiate self-examination and repair.

M. Scott Peck
When I am with a group of human beings committed to hanging in there through both the agony and the joy of community, I have a dim sense that I am participating in a phenomenon for which there is only one word...."glory."

M. Scott Peck
The life of wisdom must be a life of contemplation combined with action.

M. Scott Peck
As I grow through love, so grows my joy, ever more present, ever more constant.

M. Scott Peck
I have a very full and busy life and occasionally I am asked, Scotty, how can you do all that you do? The most telling reply I can give is: Because I spend at least two hours a day doing nothing.

M. Scott Peck