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Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity.

— M. Scott Peck

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Source: in The Road Less Travelled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and ..., p. 30
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by M. Scott Peck

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)

Again and again all of the great religions tell us that the path away from narcissism is the path toward meaning in life.

The Road Less Travelled and Beyond: Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety (1997)

The mystery of goodness is greater than that of evil.

The Road Less Travelled and Beyond: Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety (1997)

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More quotes by M. Scott Peck

It is important to realize that cults are a dime a dozen and that a great many businesses are cults.

Further Along The Road Less Travelled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth (1993)

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)

Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs.

The Road Less Travelled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth (1978)

Almost as horrific as evil itself is the denial of it, as in the case of those who go through life wearing rose-coloured glasses.

The Road Less Travelled and Beyond: Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety (1997)

All M. Scott Peck quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: M. Scott Peck (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.