M. Scott Peck Quotes - Page 5

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.

When we teach ourselves and our children discipline, we are teaching them and ourselves how to suffer and also how to grow.

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.

Worship is yet another paradox of the religious life: it is simultaneously the greatest duty and the greatest pleasure of faith. Worship is the act of truly loving God. Believe in this brilliant Being, this magnificent "higher power," who not only created us but nurtures us with care and intelligence beyond our imagination, and obviously we are called to worship Him.

The principal form that the work of love takes is attention. When we love another person we give him or her our attention; we attend to that person's growth.

One extends one's limits only by exceeding them.

I guess if you want to know one single thing I'm about, it's that I'm against easy answers.

I believe it would be considerably healthier for us to dare to live without a reason for many things than with reasons that are simplistic.

When any institution becomes large and compartmentalized, with departments and subdepartments, then the conscience of the institution will often become so fragmented and diluted as to be virtually nonexistent, and the organization becomes inherently evil.

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.

With total discipline we can solve all problems.

From the age of three on, as far back as I remember, I just knew there was a God behind everything.

It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.

Falling in love is not an extension of one's limits or boundaries; it is a partial and temporary collapse of them.

I define love thus: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

Doubt is often the beginning of wisdom.

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.

The path to holiness lies through questioning everything.

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