Falling in love is not an act of will. It is not a conscious choice. No matter how open to or eager for it we may be, the experience may still elude us. Contrarily, the experience may capture us at times when we are definitely not seeking it, when it is inconvenient and undesirable. We are as likely to fall in love with someone with whom we are obviously ill matched as with someone more suitable. Indeed, we may not even like or admire the object of our passion, yet, try as we might, we may not be able to fall in love with a person whom we deeply respect and with whom a deep relationship would be in all ways desirable. This is not to say that the experience of falling in love is immune to discipline. Psychiatrists, for instance, frequently fall in love with their patients, just as their patients fall in love with them, yet out of duty to the patient and their role they are usually able to abort the collapse of their ego boundaries and give up the patient as a romantic object. The struggle and suffering of the discipline involved may be enormous. But discipline and will can only control the experience; they cannot create it. We can choose how to respond to the experience of falling in love, but we cannot choose the experience itself. M. Scott Peck
Some Similar Quotes
  1. I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best. - Marilyn Monroe

  2. You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening, And live like it's heaven on earth. - William W. Purkey

  3. You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams. - Dr. Seuss

  4. A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you. - Elbert Hubbard

  5. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. - Unknown

More Quotes By M. Scott Peck
  1. I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.

  2. Falling in love, we said; I fell for him. We were falling women. We believed in it, this downward motion: so lovely, like flying, and yet at the same time so dire, so extreme, so unlikely. God is love, they once said, but we reversed...

  3. How could I be sleeping with this particular man.... Surely only true love could justify my lack of taste.

  4. A truth should exist, it should not be usedlike this. If I love youis that a fact or a weapon?

  5. Hatred would have been easier. With hatred, I would have known what to do. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love.

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