M. SCOTT PECK

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.

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

We cannot solve life's problems except by solving them.

The great awareness comes slowly, piece by piece. The path of spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning. The experience of spiritual power is basically a joyful one.

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

Real love is a permanently self-enlarging experience.

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

One extends one's limits only by exceeding them.

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

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.

Ultimately love is everything.

We cannot let another person into our hearts or minds unless we empty ourselves. We can truly listen to him or truly hear her only out of emptiness.

The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.

Share our similarities, celebrate our differences.

Discipline is wisdom and vice versa.

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

There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.

Multiple personality disorder and possession are not necessarily mutually incompatible disorders. There's some evidence that you can have both.

I've gone to great lengths not to be a guru. I think the notion of guruhood is utterly pathological, and I couldn't live that way. I am just a person.

As far as I am concerned, virtually all psychological diseases have their origin in our conscious minds. And that is not what we are taught.

In some ways, I am grateful that I was raised in a secular home, because that meant that I didn't have any old religious baggage to carry with me. I was free to go and think what I wanted.

I do not think that everybody has to struggle. But to probably at least half of the people, it never seems to enter their minds that they might be engaged in a struggle or that there might be something to struggle with.

Since the early 1960s, since what's been called the charismatic movement within the Christian church, a significant number of Christians believe that virtually every problem a human can have is of demonic origin.

I never thought I would ever be middle-of-the-road anything, much less a middle-of-the-road Christian, but it actually ended up I'm extremely middle of the road.

A significant regret is that I was not as good a father as I would have ideally liked to be. I was not, I think, a bad father.