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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 Peck

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M. Scott Peck
Age: 69 †
Born: 1936
Born: May 22
Died: 2005
Died: September 25
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Writer
New York City
New York
Morgan Scott Peck
Realist
Human
Essentials
Humans
Mark
Idealism
Believe
Within
Attributes
Realists
Always
Actually
Base
Mutability
People
Freedom
Transformation
Idealists
Nature
Potential
Idealist
Change
Essential
Attribute
Power
Instinct

More quotes by M. Scott Peck

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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.
M. Scott Peck
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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 Peck
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Servant-leadership is more than a concept, it is a fact. Any great leader, by which I also mean an ethical leader of any group, will see herself or himself as a servant of that group and will act accordingly.
M. Scott Peck
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The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.
M. Scott Peck
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We cannot be a source for strength unless we nurture our own strength.
M. Scott Peck
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Going into the unknown is invariably frightening, but we learn what is significantly new only through adventures.
M. Scott Peck
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We must be willing to fail and to appreciate the truth that often Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.
M. Scott Peck
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When we cling, often forever, to our old patterns of thinking and behaving, we fall to negotiate any crisis, to truly grow up, and to experience the joyful sense of rebirth that accompanies the successful transition into greater maturity.
M. Scott Peck
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If we deny our anger, our pain, our ambition, or our goodness, we will suffer.
M. Scott Peck
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The principal form that the work of love takes is attention. When we love another person we give him or her our attention we attend to that person's growth.
M. Scott Peck
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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 Peck
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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.
M. Scott Peck
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When we avoid the legitimate suffering that results from dealing with problems, we also avoid the growth that problems demand from us.
M. Scott Peck
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The best decision-makers are those who are willing to suffer the most over their decisions but still retain their ability to be decisive.
M. Scott Peck
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Discipline, it has been suggested, is the means of human spiritual evolution. What provides the motive, the energy for discipline? This force I believe to be love. I define love thus: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.
M. Scott Peck
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I am dubious as to how far we can move toward global community-which is the only way to achieve international peace-until we learn the basic principles of community in our own individual lives and personal spheres of influence.
M. Scott Peck
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We are most often in the dark when we are the most certain, and the most enlightened when we are the most confused.
M. Scott Peck
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I make no distinction between the mind and the spirit, and therefore no distinction between the process of achieving spiritual growth and achieving mental growth. They are one and the same.
M. Scott Peck
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The quickest way to change your attitude toward pain is to accept the fact that everything that happens to us has been designed for our spiritual growth.
M. Scott Peck
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The will to grow is, in essence, the same phenomenon as love. Genuinely loving people are, by definition, growing people.
M. Scott Peck