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.
M. Scott PeckRead
Falling in love is not an extension of one's limits or boundaries; it is a partial and temporary collapse of them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Falling in love temporarily breaks down personal boundaries, allowing for deeper connections.
In this quote, M. Scott Peck suggests that falling in love involves a momentary relaxation of one's emotional limitations and defenses. Rather than extending one's edges, love requires a vulnerability where personal boundaries soften, leading to profound intimacy with another person, though this state may not be permanent.
Themes
LoveBoundariesIntimacyVulnerabilityConnection
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared at a wedding to emphasize the significance of vulnerability in love.
More from M. Scott Peck
All quotes βIf 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 PeckRead
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 PeckRead
When we love someone our love becomes demonstrable or real only through our exertion - through the fact that for that someone (or for ourself) we take an extra step or walk an extra mile. Love is not effortless. To the contrary, love is effortful.
M. Scott PeckRead
An unconscious, gentle process whereby people who want to be loving attempt to be so by telling little white lies, by withholding some of the truth about themselves and their feelings in order to avoid conflict. Pseudocommunity is conflict-avoiding; true community is conflict-resolving.
M. Scott PeckRead
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 PeckRead
Similar quotes
It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you.
Mother TeresaRead
To love one person with a private love is poor and miserable: to love all is glorious.
Thomas TraherneRead
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart, The holy tree is growing there; From joy the holy branches start, And all the trembling flowers they bear. The changing colours of its fruit Have dowered the stars with metry light; The surety of its hidden root Has planted quiet in the night; The shaking of its leafy head Has given the waves their melody, And made my lips and music wed, Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
William Butler YeatsRead
My wife, my family, my friends - they've all taught me things about love and what that emotion really means. In a nutshell, loving someone is about giving, not receiving.
Nicholas SparksRead
My heart, the bird of the wilderness, has found its sky in your eyes. They are the cradle of the morning, they are the kingdom of the stars. My songs are lost in their depths. Let me but soar in that sky, in its lonely immensity. Let me but cleave its clouds and spread wings in its sunshine.
Rabindranath TagoreRead
Deep at the center of my being there is an infinite well of love. I now allow this love to flow to the surface.
Louise HayRead