M. Scott Peck Quotes

I try to be present in the moment and to be authentic, and to listen.

I think the truest things come from silence, but everything's always so clogged up with noise. If everything falls away, and you can truly listen to someone, giving them yourself and generosity, you can truly lose yourself in what they're saying. Like, not impose your ideas on what they're saying, but really tune into them.

I think there's an ongoing effort involved in trying to get a bigger perspective, trying to let go of things that limit your capacity to love and be loved or your capacity to hear and to really speak.

I think a lot of times we can get distracted and not be in the moment with people and be missing all the life happening in the moment.

Compassionate action emerges from the sense of openness, connectedness, and discernment you have created.

We all struggle with our failure to communicate and our failure to reach beyond fear to love people.

Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don't have to do anything else. We don't have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.

Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people, they give up their secrets also - if you love them enough.

It's a hard thing to find in people: to sit and just be present with someone, even for two minutes.

I think everyone who shares a piece of themselves and is open and honest - I think that helps us all.

To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, welcome, to accept.

As a body in a world, here is our choice: we can be more loving or less loving. That's it. We can relax as the entire moment's show of love's swirl, feeling open as all--a vicious rainstorm, tweeting birds, our lover's lips, a sense of worthlessness-- or we can close to some aspect of experience, pulling away as if we were separate.

Going out to others in order to reach the fringes of humanity does not mean rushing out aimlessly into the world. Often it is better simply to slow down, to put aside our eagerness in order to see and listen to others, to stop rushing from one thing to another and to remain with someone who has faltered along the way.

To me, having the courage to tell your own story goes hand in hand with having the curiosity and humility to listen to others' stories.

I traffic in empathy. I try to be vulnerable with people so they can be vulnerable back. I've always been searching for empathy in other people. It's when I feel most not alone.

The greater your capacity to love, the greater your capacity to feel the pain.

Lasting love has to be built on mutual regard and respect. It is about seeing the other person. I am very interested in relationships and, when I watch couples, sometimes I can sense a blindness has set in. They have stopped seeing each other. It is not easy to see another person.

I do try to stay open and stay as present as you can be.

When I was young I used to listen to other people and to try and understand what they thought and where they were coming from. I listened and didn't speak.

Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.

I'm very human.

The silent thing onstage allows for a kind of intimacy that no conversation can have. If I just shut up, we're forced to look at each other and really confront that moment.

The fact that you are willing to say, 'I do not understand, and it is fine,' is the greatest understanding you could exhibit.

Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.

If we dare to come closer to our fellow human beings, we will be able to see and understand them better.