Morgan Scott Peck (May 22, 1936 – September 25, 2005) was an American psychiatrist and best-selling author who wrote the book The Road Less Traveled, published in 1978.
It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.
Community is and must be inclusive. The great enemy of community is exclusivity. Groups that exclude others because they are poor or doubters or divorced or sinners or of some different race or nationality are not communities; they are cliques--actually defensive bastions against community.
God wants us to become himself or herself or itself. We are growing toward Godhood. God is the goal of evolution.
Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life. If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost.
Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs
True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision.
Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and wisdom.
What does a life of total dedication to truth mean? It means, first of all, a life of continuous and never-ending stringent self-examination. We know the world only through our relationship to it. Therefore, to know the world, we must not only examine it but we must simultaneously examine the examiner.
The path to holiness lies through questioning everything.
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.
Some Catholics have a concept I very much admire: the Sacrament of the Present Moment. It suggests that every moment of our lives is sacred, and that we should make of each moment a sacrament. Were we to do this we would think of the entire world as diffused with holiness. Wherever we might be would be a holy place for us, and we would see the holy, even sainthood, in everyone we encounter.
The feeling of being valuable - 'I am a valuable person'- is essential to mental health and is a cornerstone of self-discipline.
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.
Ultimately love is everything.
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 giving up of personality traits, well-established patterns of behavior, ideologies, and even whole life styles. . . these are major forms of giving up that are required if one is to travel very far on the journey of life.
Nirvana or lasting enlightenment or true spiritual growth can be achieved only through persistent exercise of real love.
Doubt is often the beginning of wisdom.
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.
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?