M. Scott Peck Quotes

I don't disrespect anybody who espouses a particular religion or belief - that is their own right to do that. But I think it's terribly important to look beyond the comfort that religion gives.

I have tremendous respect for teens who navigate the quagmire that is modern religion. If there is any message in my books, I want it to be that it's okay to ask questions, and it's okay to come up with a belief system all your own. Teens who change their worldviews in the face of tremendous social pressure are heroes to me.

I have opinions, sure, but they're mine, not something I'm going to insist everyone else take as any kind of gospel.

There are lots of people out there who think they know the truth about God and religion, but does anybody really know for sure? That's why the founding fathers built freedom of religious belief into the structure of this nation, so that everybody could make up their minds for themselves.

Every individual in the church is free to think as he pleases.

I've always been very liberal when it comes to people thinking for themselves.

I'd like Muslims to look at their religion as a set of beliefs that they can appraise critically and pick and choose from.

Don't try to tear down other people's religion about their ears, Build up your own perfect structure of truth, and invite your listeners to enter in and enjoy it's glories.

Don't say I hate institutionalised religion - rather than saying I hate those things, which I do not, what I'm saying is that perhaps there is a way of opening more doors, rather than closing so many.

I have an old-fashioned belief that Americans like to make up their own minds on the basis of all available information.

I went to church when I was younger, but it was never something pushed down my throat or anything, which is a good thing. I found out for myself where I belonged.

I am a firm believer. I don't follow any particular religion. That's the way I was brought up.

All of my friends are independent in thought, that's important.

Question authority; think for yourself. Talk to people, do things unrelated to school - to come up with your own framework for living. The world is too complex and people are too different to be overly prescriptive about the details.

People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.

Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.

If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.

Thought must never submit, neither to a dogma, nor to a party, nor to a passion, nor to an interest, nor to a preconceived idea, nor to whatever it may be, save to the facts themselves, because, for thought, submission would mean ceasing to be.

I don't have opinions. Only if it is necessary for a particular action, I make a judgment. Opinions are fetters for your intelligence.

I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle.

I think it's very desirable to be an individual and a free thinker.

Explore, and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry. Neither dogmatize or accept another's dogmatism.

I had always been a reader and a skeptic, so when I was old enough to break away from organized religion, it just came naturally.

Human beings never think for themselves. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.

I grew up with a good set of values, but it was never too strict. I was always encouraged to be a free-thinking individual.