Some Excellent Words

Notes from the book, The Road less Travelled - M. Scott Peck

“Neurotics make themselves miserable; those with character disorders make everyone else miserable.”

“Love can be defined as the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”

“What seems to be love is often not love at all.”

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

“A life of total dedication to the truth also means a life of willingness to be personally challenged.”

“We teach ourselves to do the unnatural until the unnatural becomes itself second nature.”

“The reason people lie is to avoid the pain of challenge and its consequences.”

“The act of withholding the truth is always potentially a lie, and that in each instance in which the truth is withheld a significant moral decision is required. The decision to withhold the truth must always be based entirely upon the needs of the person or people from whom the truth is being withheld.”

“By their openness, people dedicated to the truth live in the open, and though the exercise of their courage to live in the open, they become free from fear.”

“Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other but choose to live with each other.”

“Passive dependent people are so busy seeking to be loved that they have no energy left to love.”

“A good marriage can exist only between two strong and independent people.”

“If you expect another person to make you happy, you’ll be endlessly disappointed.”

“Masochists look on their submission to mistreatments as love, whereas in fact it is a necessity in their never-ceasing search for revenge and is basically motivated by hatred.”

“If an act is not one of work or courage, then it is not an act of love. There are no exceptions.”

“The principal for that the work of love takes is attention.”

“Attention is an act of will, of work against the inertia of our own minds.”

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

“True listening, total concentration on the other is always a manifestation of love.”

“Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the making of action in spite of fear; the moving out against the resistance engendered by fear into the unknown and into the future.”

“We can love only that which in one way or another has importance for us.”

“A full life will be full of pain. But the only alternative is not to live fully or not to live at all.”

“When we shy away from death, the ever-changing nature of things, we inevitably shy away from life.”

“The only real security in life lies in relishing life’s insecurity.”

“The highest forms of love are inevitably free choices and not acts of conformity.”

“The proper management of one’s feelings clearly lies along a complex balanced middle path, requiring constant judgment and continuing adjustment.”

“To attempt to love someone who cannot benefit from your love with spiritual growth is to waste your energy, to cast your seed upon arid ground.”

“Genuine love, with all the discipline that it requires, is the only path in this life to substantial joy.”

“The genuine lover always respects and even encourages the separateness and the unique individuality of the beloved.”

“Narcissistic individuals lack the capacity for empathy, which is the capacity to feel what another is feeling.”

“Everyone has a religion, no matter how limited or primitive or inaccurate.”

“To some extent the religion of most adults is a product of transference.”

“Human beings are poor examiners, subject to superstition, bias, prejudice, and a profound tendency to see what they want to see rather than what is really there.”

“Those who achieve growth not only enjoy the fruits of growth but give the same fruits to the world.”

“Those who are in the relatively more advanced stages of spiritual growth are the very ones most aware of their own laziness.”

“Mental illness occurs when the conscious will of the individual deviates substantially from the will of God, which is the individual’s own unconscious will.”

“Genuine loving people are, by definition, growing people.”

“When we nurture ourselves and others without a primary concern of finding reward, then we will have become lovable.”

“What makes life difficult is that the process of confronting and solving problems is a painful one.”

“The four areas of discipline include delaying gratification, accepting responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing.”

“In taking the time to observe and to think about their children’s needs, loving parents will frequently agonize over the decisions to be made, and will, in a very real sense, suffer along with their children.”

“The feeling of being valuable – ‘I am a valuable person’ – is essential to mental health and is a cornerstone of self-discipline.”

“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.”