M. Scott Peck

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

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.

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

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.

When we love someone our love becomes demonstrable or real only through our exertion - through the fact that for that someone (or for ourself) we take an extra step or walk an extra mile. Love is not effortless. To the contrary, love is effortful.

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.

Idealists are people who believe in the potential of human nature for transformation. . . . The most essential attribute of human nature is its mutability and freedom from instinct . . . it is always within our power to change our nature. So it is actually the idealists who are on the mark and the realists who are off base.

Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.

Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs

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.

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

The feeling of being valuable - 'I am a valuable person'- is essential to mental health and is a cornerstone of self-discipline.

Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them?

Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and wisdom.

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.

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

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.

We are most often in the dark when we are the most certain, and the most enlightened when we are the most confused.

The feeling of being valuable is a cornerstone of self-discipline because when you consider yourself valuable you will take care of yourself- including things like using your time well. In this way, self-discipline is self-caring.

Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit.

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.