M. Scott Peck Quotes

What I found personally to be true was that it's easier to manipulate people rather than technology.

She stared up at me, and there was something in her eyes, something that said we finally had an understanding. She was afraid of me, and sometimes that’s the best you can do with people. I’d tried kindness. I’d tried friendship. I’d tried respect. But when all else fails, fear will do the job.

POWER: The ability to make our fellow humans squirm, sweat and stammer on command. Often regarded as an aphrodisiac; actually a potent laxative that, whenever ingested by people in high places, causes everyone below to run for cover.

Everyone is afraid of you and when folk are afraid of a person it usually means the person is cruel in some way, and I think you are cruel, Miss Marquess, but please don’t punish me for saying it. I think you know you’re cruel. I think you like being cruel. I think calling you cruel is the same as calling someone else kind. And I don’t want to run errands for someone cruel.

If some small storekeeper somewhere decides he's not going to pay the money, the Godfather doesn't let him get away with it. The money doesn't mean anything to him, but he sends in his goons to beat him to a pulp. You have to establish credibility, otherwise conformity to your orders will tend to erode. International affairs runs in much the same way.

We can take it slow," he said. "You can learn to be with me. Find out what I'm all about. You never know, you might like what you find." "Don't hold your breath," she said. He stepped toward her casually, amusement flickering around his lips. She tensed, her eyes checking for a way to run. "Or..." His hand lashed out, grabbed her, and whipped her into his arms, where he held her tight. "We can take it fast and rough.

I believe in kindness and niceness and lots of spiritual things, but the real intellectual rigor and quest of logic is something that I'm afraid takes incredibly hard work and we live in an age in which hard work is if not actively deprecated or denigrated it is run away from or ignored.

Now I want you to listen to me," he said in a low voice, taking her chin in his hand and forcing her to look at him. "And listen carefully, because I'm only going to say this once. You are going to marry me before this week is out. Since you have conveniently run off to Scotland, we don't need a special license. You're just lucky I don't haul you off to a church right this instant. Get yourself a dress and get yourself some flowers, because, sweeetheart, you're getting yourself a new name.

The puppet thinks: It's not so much what they make me do as their hands inside me.

The people can be forced to fear, but not to love.

There is no applause that so flatters a man as that which he wrings from unwilling throats.

There is a spiritual aspect to our lives - when we give, we receive-when a business does something good for somebody, that somebody feels good about them!

Just remember who you belong to, Hannah. I wouldn't want to have to shoot anyone - or strangle you." She leaned over to kiss his shoulder. "Why am I the one to be strangled?" "It's a much more personal death.

...Spiritual opening is not a withdrawal to some imagined realm or safe cave. It is not a pulling away, but a touching of all the experience of life with wisdom and with a heart of kindness, without any separation.

The essence of all religions is love, compassion and tolerance. Kindness is my true religion. No matter whether you are learned or not, whether you believe in the next life or not, whether you believe in God or Buddha or some other religion or not, in day-to-day life you must be a kind person.

In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want — not only you, your whole family and all people like you.

Atheism: It seeks to replace in itself the moral power of religion, in order to appease the spiritual thirst of parched humanity and save it; not by Christ, but by force.

Compassion automatically brings happiness and calmness. Then, even if you receive disturbing news, it will be easier to take, as your mind is still.

Half the population hold that the government is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves, as polls regularly show.

Tears and complaints - the means which I have called water power - can be an extremely useful weapon for disturbing cooperation and reducing other to a condition of slavery.

We have to learn to be kind to ourselves. In the long run avoiding unpleasantness is a very unkind thing to do to yourself.

The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.

There has never been a slave who did not choose to be a slave. Their choice may be between bondage and death, but the choice is always there.

Military power wins battles, but spiritual power wins wars.

There's a condensed softness about the Albanian people, and I've witnessed examples of their hospitality.