Friday, April 24, 2009

Abounding Grace

Abounding Grace: An Anthology of Wisdom
© 2000 ed. M. Scott Peck
384 pages

Abounding Grace is a strangely titled book of quotations, compiled and commented on by M. Scott Peck, a psychologist who wrote a number of so-called "self-help" books. The book is divided into twelve major themes, most of which have subsections. For instance, "Happiness" -- part one -- id divided into "Acceptance", "Cheerfulness", "Contentment", "Forgiveness", and so on. Peck introduces each theme with a few pages of commentary, explaining the meaning and importance of the theme. Peck writes that he was careful to choose quotes that were devoid of too much mystical language, hoping instead to err on the side of "pithy". I recognized many names among the quoted -- Robert Ingersoll, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Anne Frank. Peck seems to have deliberately chosen quotations so that quotations in a given section might contradict one another, presumably to force the reader to think about context.

Outside of this, I don't know what to add. I enjoyed reading the quotations, and will go through the book later to cull out my favorites and write them down.

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