M. Scott Peck - The Road Less Traveled (1978)

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The difficulty we have in accepting responsibility for our behavior lies in the desire to avoid the pain of the consequences of that behavior.

M. Scott Peck
You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.

M. Scott Peck
Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing. With only some discipline we can solve only some problems. With total discipline we can solve all problems.

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

M. Scott Peck
Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.

M. Scott Peck
Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs

M. Scott Peck
Spiritually evolved people, by virtue of their discipline, mastery and love, are people of extraordinary competence, and in their competence they are called on to serve the world, and in their love they answer the call.

M. Scott Peck
Not only do self-love and love of others go hand in hand but ultimately they are indistinguishable.

M. Scott Peck
If you wish to discern either the presence or absence of integrity, you need to ask only one question. What is missing? Has anything been left out?

M. Scott Peck
Although the act of nurturing another's spiritual growth has the effect of nurturing one's own, a major characteristic of genuine love is that the distinction between oneself and the other is always maintained and preserved.

M. Scott Peck
Good discipline requires time. When we have no time to give our children, or no time that we are willing to give, we don't even observe them closely enough to become aware of when their need for our disciplinary assistance is expressed subtley.

M. Scott Peck
An essential part of true listening is the discipline of bracketing, the temporary giving up or setting aside of one's own prejudices, frames of reference and desires so as to experience as far as possible the speaker's world from the inside, step in inside his or her shoes.

M. Scott Peck
The best decision-makers are those who are willing to suffer the most over their decisions but still retain their ability to be decisive.

M. Scott Peck
Listen to your child enough and you will come to realize that he or she is quite an extraordinary individual. And the more extraordinary you realize your child to be the more you will be willing to listen. And the more you will learn.

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
True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision.

M. Scott Peck
We know a great deal more about the causes of physical disease than we do about the causes of physical health.

M. Scott Peck
I make no distinction between the mind and the spirit, and therefore no distinction between the process of achieving spiritual growth and achieving mental growth. They are one and the same.

M. Scott Peck
If we seek to be loved - if we expect to be loved - this cannot be accomplished; we will be dependent and grasping not genuinely loving.

M. Scott Peck
Whenever we think of ourselves as doing something for someone else, we are in some way denying our own responsibility. Whatever we do is done because we choose to do it, and we make that choice because it is the one that satisfies us the most.

M. Scott Peck
Genuine love not only respects the individuality of the other but actually cultivates it, even at the risk of separation or loss. The ultimate goal of life remains the spiritual growth of the individual, the solitary journey to peaks that can be climbed only alone.

M. Scott Peck
Examination of the world without is never as personally painful as examination of the world within.

M. Scott Peck
If you are determined not to risk pain, then you must do without many things: having children, getting married, the ecstasy of sex, the hope of ambition, friendship-all that makes life alive, meaningful and significant.

M. Scott Peck
Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life. If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost.

M. Scott Peck
God wants us to become himself or herself or itself. We are growing toward Godhood. God is the goal of evolution.

M. Scott Peck
The time and the quality of the time that their parents devote to them indicate to children the degree to which they are valued by their parents.... When children know that they are valued, when they truly feel valued in the deepest parts of themselves, then they feel valuable. This knowledge is worth more than any gold.

M. Scott Peck
If we want to be heard we must speak in a language the listener can understand and on a level at which the listener is capable of operating.

M. Scott Peck
The more effort we make to appreciate and perceive reality, the larger and more accurate our maps will be. But many do not want to make this effort.

M. Scott Peck
A life of total dedication to the truth also means a life of willingness to be personally challenged.

M. Scott Peck