M. Scott Peck Quotes
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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.
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Love is too large, too deep ever to be truly understood or measured or limited within the framework of words.
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By far the most important form of attention we can give our loved ones is listening... True listening is love in action.
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I have said I have met Satan, and this is true. But it is not tangible. It no more has horns, hooves and a forked tail than God has a long white beard. Even the name, Satan, is just a name we have given to something basically nameless.
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Servant-leadership is more than a concept, it is a fact. Any great leader, by which I also mean an ethical leader of any group, will see herself or himself as a servant of that group and will act accordingly.
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Evil people hate the light because it reveals themselves to themselves. ... They will destroy the light, the goodness, the love in order to avoid the pain of self-awareness. ... [E]vil is laziness carried to its ultimate, extraordinary extreme.
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Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church. What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself as well as from others than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture
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The feeling of being valuable - 'I am a valuable person'- is essential to mental health and is a cornerstone of self-discipline.
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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.
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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.
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Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems ... create our courage and wisdom.
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Falling in love is not an extension of one's limits or boundaries; it is a partial and temporary collapse of them.
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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."
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I define love thus: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.
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God creates each soul differently, so that when all the mud is finally cleared away, His light will shine through it in a beautiful, colorful, totally new pattern.
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Community is and must be inclusive. The great enemy of community is exclusivity. Groups that exclude others because they are poor or doubters or divorced or sinners or of some different race or nationality are not communities; they are cliques--actually defensive bastions against community.
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The will to grow is, in essence, the same phenomenon as love. Genuinely loving people are, by definition, growing people.
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The major threats to our survival no longer stem from nature without but from our own human nature within. It is our carelessness, our hostilities, our selfishness and pride and willful ignorance that endanger the world.
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A life of total dedication to the truth also means a life of willingness to be personally challenged.
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Going into the unknown is invariably frightening, but we learn what is significantly new only through adventures.
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What does a life of total dedication to truth mean? It means, first of all, a life of continuous and never-ending stringent self-examination. We know the world only through our relationship to it. Therefore, to know the world, we must not only examine it but we must simultaneously examine the examiner.
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When we teach ourselves and our children discipline, we are teaching them and ourselves how to suffer and also how to grow.
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When we cling, often forever, to our old patterns of thinking and behaving, we fall to negotiate any crisis, to truly grow up, and to experience the joyful sense of rebirth that accompanies the successful transition into greater maturity.
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Do what you feel called to do, but also be prepared to accept that you don't necessarily know what you're going to learn. Be willing to be surprised by forces beyond your control, and realize that a major learning on the journey is the art of surrender.