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 PeckRead
Falling in love is not an extension of one's limits or boundaries; it is a partial and temporary collapse of them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Falling in love temporarily breaks down personal boundaries, allowing for deeper connections.
In this quote, M. Scott Peck suggests that falling in love involves a momentary relaxation of one's emotional limitations and defenses. Rather than extending one's edges, love requires a vulnerability where personal boundaries soften, leading to profound intimacy with another person, though this state may not be permanent.
Themes
LoveBoundariesIntimacyVulnerabilityConnection
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared at a wedding to emphasize the significance of vulnerability in love.
More from M. Scott Peck
All quotes →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 PeckRead
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 PeckRead
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.
M. Scott PeckRead
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 PeckRead
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.
M. Scott PeckRead
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Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.
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The fragility of love is what is most at stake here—humanity's most crucial three-word avowal is often uttered only to find itself suddenly embarrassing or orphaned or isolated or ill-timed—but strangely enough it can work better as a literal or reassuring statement than a transcendent or numinous or ecstatic one.
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