Quotes From "Further Along The Road Less Traveled"

I liked M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Traveled" so it was a no-brainer to buy this sequel to that bestseller in February 1995. Little did I know that less than two weeks later, my bed-ridden father would join his Creator. That's the sentimental link of this volume to me. Here are my choice cuts:

On "Life":

"Life is complex."

* * *

"There are no self-help manuals, no formulas, no easy answers. The right road for one is the wrong road for another."

On "Suffering":

"There is such a thing as constructive suffering."

On "Guilt":

"We need a certain amount of guilt in order to exist in society. And that's what I call existential guilt."

On "Courage":

"The absence of fear is not courage; the absence of fear is some kind of brain damage."

* * *

"Courage is the capacity to go ahead in spite of fear, or in spite of the pain."

On "Immaturity":

"...what characterizes most immature people is that they sit around complaining that life doesn't meet their demands."

On "Pain":

"The quickest way to change your attitude toward pain is to accept the fact that everything that happens to us has been designed for our spiritual growth."

On "Salvation":

"Salvation is the process of healing and the process of becoming whole."

On "Consciousness":

"Consciousness brings more pain, but it also brings more joy."

* * *

"The more pain you are willing to take on, the more joy you will also begin to feel."

On"Forgiving":

"A big part of growing up is learning to forgive."

On"Anger":

"Blame always begins with anger."

On "Will Power":

"A strong will is, I believe, the best asset that a human being can possess, not because it guarantees success or goodness, but because a weak will pretty much guarantees failure."

* * *

"The worst side effect of a strong will is a strong temper--anger."

* * *

"Your will has to be harnessed to a power higher than yourself".

On "Blessings":

"All blessings are potential curses, all have their side effects."

On "Forgiveness and Affirmation":

"Make no mistake, forgiveness and affirmation are not the same. Affirmation is a way to avoid looking at evil....Forgiveness on the other hand requires facing evil squarely."

On "Forgetting and Forgiving":

"We cannot truly forget. We can only truly forgive..."

On "Humility":

"Humility is a true knowledge of oneself as one is."

--M. Scott Peck

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