Marshall B. Rosenberg famous quotes

Every criticism, judgment, diagnosis, and expression of anger is the tragic expression of an unmet need.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Expression #Criticism

All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Encouragement #Pain #Believe

Your presence is the most precious gift you can give to another human being.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Giving #Empathy #Humans

When our communication supports compassionate giving and receiving, happiness replaces violence and grieving.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Happiness #Communication #Grieving

The most dangerous of all behaviors may consist of doing things 'because we're supposed to.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #May #Behavior

Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing. Instead of offering empathy, we often have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling. Empathy, however, calls upon us to empty our mind and listen to others with our whole being.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Strong #Offering #Giving

If we want to be compassionate we must be conscious of the words we use. We must both speak and listen from the heart.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Heart #Want #Use

When you ride the wave, the thrill is so exhilarating that you forget everything else. You live in the moment where nothing else matters, so intent on riding the wave perfectly that you and the wave become one. Pain and worry disappear, replaced by euphoria, akin to flow. Similarly, when giving empathy, you want to strive for this kind of total presence for the person you are listening to.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Pain #Giving #Worry

The objective of Nonviolent Communication is not to change people and their behavior in order to get our way: it is to establish relationships based on honesty and empathy, which will eventually fulfill everyone's needs.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Honesty #Communication #Order

Empathy lies in our ability to be present without opinion.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Lying #Empathy #Opinion

We are never angry because of what others say or do. It is our thinking that makes us angry.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Thinking #Nonviolent Communication

Punishment is the root of violence on our planet.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Punishment #Roots

Whether I praise or criticize someone's action, I imply that I am their judge, that I'm engaged in rating them or what they have done.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Judging #Done

At the core of all anger is a need that is not being fulfilled.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Needs #Fulfilled

Violence comes from the belief that other people cause our pain and therefore deserve punishment.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Pain #Communication #Punishment

To practice the process of conflict resolution, we must completely abandon the goal of getting people to do what we want.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Practice #Goal #People

Never question the beauty of what you are saying because someone reacts with pain, judgment, criticism. It just means they have not heard you.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Pain #Communication #Mean

Blaming and punishing others are superficial expressions of anger.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Expression #Blame

When we focus on clarifying what is being observed, felt, and needed rather than on diagnosing and judging, we discover the depth of our own compassion.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Compassion #Judging #Focus

It's never what people do that makes us angry; it's what we tell ourselves about what they did.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Anger #People #Angry

Use the words "I feel because I" to remind us that what we feel it isn't because of what the other person did, but because of a choice I've made.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Choices #Use

When we judge others we contribute to violence.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Judging #Violence

It may be most difficult to empathize with those we are closest to.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Empathy #May #Difficult

Empathizing with someone's 'no' protects us from taking it personally.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Empathy #Protect

The Chinese philosopher Chuang-Tzu stated that true empathy requires listening with the whole being: The hearing that is only in the ears is one thing. The hearing of the understanding is another. But the hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty, to the ear, or to the mind. Hence it demands the emptiness of all the faculties. And when the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens. There is then a direct grasp of what is right there before you that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Empathy #Understanding #Listening

Often, instead of offering empathy, we have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Strong #Offering #Giving

Compliments and praise, for their part, are tragic expressions of fulfilled needs
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Expression #Needs

Depression is the reward we get for being 'good'.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Rewards #Nonviolent Communication

People heal from their pain when they have an authentic connection with another human being.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Pain #Communication #People

How I choose to look at any situation will greatly affect whether I have the power to change it or make matters worse.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Looks #Matter

If you are a czar or a king or a president or someone that wants to control those below them you do not want people to have a consciousness of life, of their needs. Because people do not make good slaves when they're connected to life... That's why in the public schools the primary objective is obedience to authority.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Kings #School #People

Every message, regardless of form or content, is an expression of a need.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Expression #Messages

What others do may be the stimulus of our feelings, but never the cause.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Feelings #May

We are responsible for what we hear other people say and for how we act.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #People #Responsible

We use NVC to evaluate ourselves in ways that engender growth rather than self-hatred.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Self #Hatred

People do not hear our pain when they believe they are at fault.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Pain #Communication #Believe

At the root of every tantrum and power struggle are unmet needs.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Struggle #Roots

Learning is too precious to be motivated by coercive tactics.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Tactics #Motivated

When we understand the needs that motivate our own and others behavior, we have no enemies.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Enemy #Needs

Imagine connecting with the human spirit in each person in any situation at any time. Imagine interacting with others in a way that allows everyone's need to be equally valued. Imagine creating organizations and life-serving systems responsive to our needs and the needs of our environment.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Organization #Creating #Way

Expressing our vulnerability can help resolve conflicts.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Helping #Conflict

Fear of punishment diminishes self-esteem and goodwill.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Self Esteem #Communication #Punishment

Don't hate the circumstance, you may miss the blessing
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Hate #Communication #Blessing

Always listen to what people need rather than what they are thinking about us.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Thinking #People

Anger is a signal that you're distracted by judgmental or punitive thinking, and that some precious need of yours is being ignored.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Thinking #Being Ignored

We can't win at somebody else's expense. We can only fully be satisfied when the other person's needs are fulfilled as well as our own.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Winning #Needs

NVC suggests behind every action, however ineffective, tragic, violent, or abhorrent to us, is an attempt to meet a need.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Needs #Abhorrent

I wouldn't expect someone who's been injured to hear my side until they felt that I had fully understood the depth of their pain.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Pain #Empathy #Sides

Intellectual understanding blocks empathy.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Block #Empathy #Understanding

While we may not consider the way we talk to be 'violent,' our words often lead to hurt and pain, whether for others or for ourselves.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Hurt #Pain #Communication

Peace requires something far more difficult than revenge or merely turning the other cheek; it requires empathizing with the fears and unmet needs that provide the impetus for people to attack each other. Being aware of these feelings and needs, people lose their desire to attack back because they can see the human ignorance leading to these attacks; instead, their goal becomes providing the empathic connection and education that will enable them to transcend their violence and engage in cooperative relationships.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Revenge #Ignorance #Goal

To practice NVC, it's critical for me to be able to slow down, take my time, to come from an energy I choose, the one I believe that we were meant to come from, not the one I was programmed into.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Believe #Practice

Children need far more than basic skills in reading, writing, and math, as important as those might be. Children also need to learn how to think for themselves, how to find meaning in what they learn, and how to work and live together.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Children #Communication #Reading

We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Responsibility #Thinking #Emotion

You can't make your kids do anything. All you can do is make them wish they had. And then, they will make you wish you hadn't made them wish they had.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Children #Communication #Kids

Our goal is to create a quality of empathic connection that allows everyone's needs to be met.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Goal #Empathy #Quality

We only feel dehumanized when we get trapped in the derogatory images of other people or thoughts of wrongness about ourselves. As author and mythologist Joseph Campbell suggested, "'What will they think of me?' must be put aside for bliss." We begin to feel this bliss when messages previously experienced as critical or blaming begin to be seen for the gifts they are: opportunities to give to people who are in pain.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Pain #Opportunity #Thinking

Ask before offering advice or reassurance.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Offering #Advice

Labeling and diagnosis is a catastrophic way to communicate. Telling other people what's wrong with them greatly reduces, almost to zero, the probability that we're going to get what we're after.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Zero #Communication #People

When we hear the other person's feelings and needs, we recognize our common humanity.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Feelings #Humanity #Needs

Anger tells us we've disconnected from life. The purpose in anger is to use it to come back to life.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Purpose #Use

Two things distinguish nonviolent actions from violent actions. First, you don't see an enemy and second, your intention is not to make the other side suffer.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Two #Enemy

I think that there is a problem with rewards and consequences because in the long run, they rarely work in the ways we hope. In fact, they are likely to backfire.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Running #Communication #Thinking

Everything we do is in service of our needs. When this one concept is applied to our view of others, we'll see that we have no real enemies, that what others do to us is the best possible thing they know to do to get their needs met.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Real #Views #Enemy

You'll find people less threatening if you hear what they're needing rather than what they're thinking about you.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Thinking About You #Thinking #People

My need is for safety, fun and to have distribution of resources, a sustainable life on the planet. NVC is a strategy that serves me to meet these needs.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Fun #Communication #Safety

Most of us grew up speaking a language that encourages us to label, compare, demand, and pronounce judgments rather than to be aware of what we are feeling and needing.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Feelings #Labels #Demand

Praise and reward create a system of extrinsic motivations for behavior. Children (and adults) end up taking action in order to receive the praise or rewards.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Motivation #Children #Communication

Four D's of Disconnection: 1. Diagnosis (judgment, analysis, criticism, comparison); 2. Denial of Responsibility; 3. Demand; 4. 'Deserve' oriented language.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Responsibility #Criticism

I believe that the most joyful and intrinsic motivation human beings have for taking any action is the desire to meet our needs and the needs of others.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Motivation #Communication #Believe

If I'm using Nonviolent Communication I never, never, never hear what somebody thinks about me. Never hear what somebody thinks about you, you'll live longer. You'll enjoy life more. Hear the truth. The truth is that when somebody's telling you what's wrong with you, the truth is they have a need that isn't getting met. Hear that they're in pain. Don't hear the analysis.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Pain #Communication #Thinking

My anger tells me firstly that there's a need of mine that's not getting met.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Needs #Mets

When we have our consciousness on needs, images come to us, naturally, of how to meet those needs.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Needs #Consciousness

My ultimate goal is to spend as many of my moments in life as I can in that world that the poet Rumi talks about, 'a place beyond rightness and wrongness.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Goal #World

I never have to worry about another person's response, only how I react to what they say.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Worry #Response

Once you can clearly describe what you are reacting to, free of your interpretation or evaluation of it, other people are less likely to be defensive when they hear it.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #People #Evaluation

When we are in contact with our feelings and needs, we humans no longer make good slaves and underlings.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Feelings #Needs #Slave

Teacher, school administrators and parents will come away from Life-Enriching Education with skills in language, communication, and ways of structuring the learning environment that support the development of autonomy and interdependence in the classroom.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Teacher #Communication #School

NVC can be effectively applied at all levels of communication and in diverse situations: intimate relationships, families, schools, organizations and institutions, therapy and counseling, diplomatic and business negotiations, disputes and conflicts of any nature.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #School #Organization

There are the two main reasons we don't get our needs met. First, we don't know how to express our needs to begin with and second if we do, we forget to put a clear request after it, or we use vague words like appreciate, listen, recognize, know, be real, and stuff like that.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Real #Communication #Two

Public education for some time has been heavily focused on what curricula we believe will be helpful to students. Life-Enriching Education is based on the premise that the relationship between teachers and students, the relationships of students with one another, and the relationships of students to what they are learning are equally important in preparing students for the future.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Teacher #Communication #Believe

When we express our needs indirectly through the use of evaluations, interpretations, and images, others are likely to hear criticism. When people hear anything that sounds like criticism, they tend to invest their energy in self-defense or counterattack. It's important that when we address somebody that we're clear what we want back.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Self #People

Every moment each human being is doing the best we know at that moment to meet our needs. We never do anything that is not in the service of a need, there is no conflict on our planet at the level of needs. We all have the same needs. The problem is in strategies for meeting the needs.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Needs #Levels

As NVC replaces our old patterns of defending, withdrawing or attacking in the face of judgment and criticism. We come to perceive ourselves and others, as well as our intentions and relationships, in a new light. Resistance, defensiveness, and violent reactions are minimized.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Light #Criticism

Conventional compliments often take the form of judgments however positive, and are sometimes offered to manipulate the behavior of others. NVC encourages the expression of appreciation solely for celebration.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Appreciation #Communication #Expression

The number one reason that we don't get our needs met, we don't express them. We express judgments. If we do express needs, the number two reasons we don't our needs met, we don't make clear requests.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Two #Numbers

Clinical training in psychoanalysis has a deficit. It teaches how to sit and think about what a person is saying and how to interpret it intellectually, but not how to be fully present to this person.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Thinking #Training

When we make mistakes, we can use the process of NVC mourning and self-forgiveness to show us where we can grow instead of getting caught up in moralistic self-judgments.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Mistake #Communication #Self

NVC is interested in learning that is motivated by reverence for life, by a desire to learn skills, to contribute better to our own well-being and the well-being of others.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Skills #Desire

Power-Over leads to punishment and violence. Power-With leads to compassion and understanding, and to learning motivated by reverence for life rather than fear, guilt, shame, or anger.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Compassion #Punishment

If we ask two questions, we will see that punishment never works. First: What do we want the other person to do? Second: What do we want the other person's reasons to be for doing as we request?
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Punishment #Two

Violence in any form is a tragic expression of our unmet needs.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Expression #Unmet Needs #Violence

Let’s shine the light of consciousness on places where we can hope to find what we are seeking.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Light #Shining #Consciousness

Never give advice to your children unless you have it in writing and notarized.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Children #Writing #Giving

Before we tackle the gangs and the basic story, we have to make sure that we have liberated ourselves from how we have been educated and make sure we are coming from a spirituality of our own choosing.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Stories #Spirituality

Some people use NVC to respond compassionately to themselves, some to create greater depth in their personal relationships, and still others to build effective relationships at work or in the political arena. Worldwide, NVC is used to mediate disputes and conflicts at all levels.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #People #Political

We only feel dehumanized when we get trapped in the derogatory images of other people or thoughts of wrongness about ourselves.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#People #Feels

You're going to lose it when you follow the world "feel" with the words "because I think". Any time you are thinking, your chance of getting what you need is greatly decreased, especially when you follow the word "think" with the word "you". I predict you won't only not get heard, but I predict a defensive aggressive reaction.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Thinking #World

The only time a message (label) can scare us is if we think there is such a thing, and that such a thing is a disgrace.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Thinking #Scare

The most important use of NVC may be in developing self-compassion.
-- Marshall B. Rosenberg

#Communication #Compassion #Self