A Quote by M. Scott Peck

What people get admired and appreciated for in community are their soft skills: their sense of humor and timing, their ability to listen, their courage and honesty, their capacity for empathy.
Everybody I know who is funny, it's in them. You can teach timing, or some people are able to tell a joke, though I don't like to tell jokes. But I think you have to be born with a sense of humor and a sense of timing.
They are the kinds of things that make us a community: attachment to place, attachment to local arts traditions, the ability to read literature, the ability to look at paintings, the sense of connectedness to the land, the sense of community that comes from people taking care of their own.
Do you know the most important trait a man can have? It is not executive ability; it is not a great mentality; it is not kindliness, nor courage, nor a sense of humor, though each of these is of tremendous importance. In my opinion, it is the ability to make friends, which, boiled down, means the ability to see the best in man.
People, to maintain their self-esteem, tend to believe they are above average on all positive qualities - height, income, intelligence, sense of humor, negotiating ability, you name it. The problem is that if we are going to really build our skills, we need to know which skills are most deficient. So, I advise people to find confidantes to tell them the truth. And then act on that knowledge to build the abilities they need to be more successful.
You want to teach all kids the skills that are on the better side of human nature: empathy, appreciating how one's behavior is affecting other people, resolving disagreements in ways that do not involve conflict, taking another's perspective, honesty.
I just devoured all of his [Buster Keaton’s] films because his sense of comic timing was amazing. He’s the closest a human being has ever come to a cartoon character. And I was just amazed at his sense of character and timing, the humor. It's all just so…sophisticated, even when you watch it today.
In a high-IQ job pool, soft skills like discipline, drive and empathy mark those who emerge as outstanding.
Maturity is the capacity to love, to care about other people in the broadest sense ... and to continue to increase this capacity beyond our families to the community, to the state, to the nation, and to this shrinking little world.
The only way we really create change is to enter any situation with the humility to listen and to recognize the world as it is, and then the audacity to dream what it could be, to have the patience to start and let the work teach you, to be willing to lead when you need to lead, and to listen. To have a sense of generosity and empathy, but not over-empathy, because accountability is so critical to building solutions that work.
Empathy is one of our highest human skills and holds families and societies together. Feeling connected to other people is probably the deepest satisfaction we will ever know. How terrible for children who are being brought up without that capacity.
There is a section of our population in South Africa that you can't expect to get integrated in the economy of its own. These are people without skills and that will include young people who might very well have matric certificates, but don't have the skills to be absorbed in the economy. So we need to target people like those in a special way, in a focused way so that they have the skills and the capacity to participate in the economy. That requires special programmes.
Spoken word teaches that if you have the ability to express yourself and the courage to present those stories and opinions, you could be rewarded with a room full of your peers or your community who will listen.
When I've traveled to London and Ireland, people don't seem to take themselves so seriously, and it's not just having a sense of humor about what's around you but having a sense of humor about yourself, and that's the healthiest sense of humor.
On the tennis court, one needs a cool temperament, tremendous ball sense, reflexes, speed, hand-eye co-ordination, power, timing and peak physical fitness. Off the court, the player and support team need skills in planning, execution, travel, an ability to raise funds when needed, and several other talents.
I think that you have to experience darkness to feel empathy. For all of my failings - and I have many - I do have a complete ability to emphasize with people. And that all goes down to being "other." When you're young you think otherness is a state only you possess. When you get older you realize, "Actually, there's so many of us." In that we find community.
I have long admired Caroline Leavitt's probing insight into people, her wit and compassion, her ability to find humor in dark situations, and conversely, her tenderness towards characters.
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