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Quotes from People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil — M. Scott Peck

1936–2005 United States

← All quotes by M. Scott Peck

18 quotes

My favorite definition of evil is that it is militant ignorance.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

Lying is both a cause and a manifestation of evil.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

The only power that Satan has is through human belief in its lies.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

It would, I believe, be quite appropriate to classify evil people as constituting a specific variant of the narcisstic personality disorder.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

Satan has no power except in a human body.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

While Eastern religions have a far more developed understanding of spiritual growth, they have paid comparatively little attention to the phenomenon of human evil.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

Dangerous though a psychology of evil might be, it will be more dangerous not to have one.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

The reality of the matter is that the naming of evil is still in a primitive stage.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

It is not the weak or the stupid who are most likely to be the targets of evil, but the strong and the good. Evil seeks to destroy the life force wherever it is most manifest.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

The spirit of evil is one of unreality, but it itself is real. To think otherwise is to be misled.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

If we attempt te deal with (human) evil by destroying it, we will also end up destroying ourselves, spiritually if not physcially. And we are likely to take some innocent people with us as well.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

I know no more accurate epithet for Satan than the Father of Lies.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

Evil is that force ... residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

There are a number of different theological models of evil ... This book will concern itself solely with the subject of human evil, and its primary focus will be on 'bad people'.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

Evil can be thought of as the exercise of political power — that is, the imposition of one’s will upon others by overt or covert coercion in order to avoid extending oneself for the purpose of nurturing spiritual growth.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

Who in the hell is Satan? I don't know.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

This is a dangerous book.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

Compartmentalization is not the root of all evil; it is, however, the principal psychological mechanism of evil. Deprive an evil man of his capacity to compartmentalize, and he will be like a general without an army. Or better yet, he will undergo a conversion to goodness — a conversion to integrity.

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: M. Scott Peck (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.