Marshall Rosenberg Quotes

#1. If the other persons behavior is not in harmony with my own needs, the more I empathize with them and their needs, the more likely I am to get me own needs met.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#2. We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#3. When we judge others we contribute to violence.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#4. You can try reading books that will help you be a leader, like Marshall Rosenberg and Thich Nhat Hanh. Be very humble and say, "I don't know why. I don't feel qualified, but I accept this role that you gave me, and so help me."

Sandra Cisneros

#5. Never give advice to your children unless you have it in writing and notarized.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#6. What bores the listener bores the speaker too.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#7. When we fear punishment, we focus on consequences, not on our own values.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#8. Most of us live in a Jackal world where we take turns using the other person as a waste basket for our words.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#9. Never hear what a jackal-speaking person thinks, especially what they think about you.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#10. 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

#11. Don't get addicted to your requests. Your objective is needs, not requests. Because then it becomes a demand.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#12. When you are in a jackal environment, never give them the power to submit or rebel. We want to teach this to children very early: Never lose track that you are always free to choose. Don't allow institutions to determine what you do.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#13. We want to take action out of the desire to contribute to life rather than out of fear, guilt, shame, or obligation.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#14. We are this divine energy. It's not something we have to attain. We just have to realize it, to be present to it.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#15. I find that my cultural conditioning leads me to focus attention on places where I am unlikely to get what I want. I developed NVC as a way to train my attention-to shine the light of consciousness-on places that have the potential to yield what I am seeking.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#16. All human actions are an attempt to meet needs.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#17. Anger, depression, guilt, and shame are the product of the thinking that is at the base of violence on our planet.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#18. Our goal is to create a quality of empathic connection that allows everyone's needs to be met.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#19. Never hear what somebody thinks about you, you'll live longer. Hear that they're in pain. Don't hear their analysis.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#20. Make your goal to attend to your underlying needs and to aim for a resolution so satisfying that everyone involved has their needs met also.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#21. 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

#22. Speak Peace is a book that comes at an appropriate time when anger and violence dominates human attitudes. Marshall Rosenberg gives us the means to create peace through our speech and communication. A brilliant book.

Arun Manilal Gandhi

#23. When we listen for their feelings and needs, we no longer see people as monsters.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#24. When we understand the needs that motivate our own and others behavior, we have no enemies.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#25. If people just asked: "Here are the needs of both sides, here are the resources. What can be done to meet these needs?" the conflict would be easy to resolve.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#26. We use NVC to evaluate ourselves in ways that engender growth rather than self-hatred.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#27. Every message, regardless of form or content, is an expression of a need.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#28. What others do may be the stimulus of our feelings, but never the cause.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#29. NVC helps us connect with each other and ourselves in a way that allows our natural compassion to flourish.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#30. Any time you throw pain at a Jackal without a clear present request, within a millisecond he'll jump in.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#31. Empathize, rather than put your "but" in the face of an angry person.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#32. Why don't we have people like Thich Nhat Hanh or Marshall Rosenberg and Nelson Mandela solving violent situations in a peaceful way?

Sandra Cisneros

#33. Violence comes from the belief that other people cause our pain and therefore deserve punishment.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#34. 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

#35. We are responsible for what we hear other people say and for how we act.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#36. To practice the process of conflict resolution, we must completely abandon the goal of getting people to do what we want.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#37. Use anger as a wake-up call to unmet needs.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#38. When I recognize I've got anger, then I realize it's because I have a need that's not being met.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#39. The intention behind the protective use of force is to prevent injury, never to punish or to cause individuals to suffer, repent or change.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#40. Life-Enriching Education: an education that prepares children to learn throughout their lives, relate well to others, and themselves, be creative, flexible, and venturesome, and have empathy not only for their immediate kin but for all of humankind.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#41. Every time I mess up is a chance to practice.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#42. In our culture, most of us have been trained to ignore our own wants and to discount our needs.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#43. Avoid 'shoulding' on others and yourself!

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#44. It's never what people do that makes us angry; it's what we tell ourselves about what they did.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#45. NVC shows us a way of being very honest, but without any criticism, insults, or putdowns, and without any intellectual diagnosis implying wrongness.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#46. If we want to make meetings productive, we need to keep track of those whose requests are on the table.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#47. 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

#48. The most dangerous of all behaviors may consist of doing things 'because we're supposed to.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#49. peace cannot be built on the foundations of fear.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#50. Once you have access to key people in an organization, if you go into a meeting with enemy images of those people - then you are not going to connect.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#51. Anger can be a wonderful wake up call to help you understand what you need and what you value.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#52. With empathy we don't direct, we follow. Don't just do something, be there.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#53. Always listen to what people need rather than what they are thinking about us.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#54. Empathy: Emptying our mind and listening with our whole being

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#55. Fix-it jackals can't wait to fix it, because they don't know how to enjoy pain. And until you learn how to enjoy pain, you can't enjoy intimacy.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#56. Depression is the reward we get for being 'good'.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#57. I highly recommend the approach Marshall Rosenberg details in Nonviolent Communication (2nd Edition 2008), which has essentially three parts: When X happens [described factually, not judgmentally], I feel Y [especially the deeper, softer emotions], because I need Z [fundamental needs and wants].

Rick Hanson

#58. 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

#59. A need is life seeking expression within us.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#60. Social change involves helping people see new options for making life wonderful that are less costly to get needs met.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#61. Fear of corporal punishment obscures children's awareness of the compassion underlying the parent's demands.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#62. NVC requires us to be continually conscious of the beauty within ourselves and other people.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#63. With every choice you make, be conscious of what need it serves.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#64. You don't have to be brilliant. It's enough to become progressively less stupid.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#65. We're not taught to think in terms of needs. We don't make nice dead people when we're in touch with needs. Domination structures cannot maintain themselves when citizens are educated to be alive.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#66. 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

#67. Our survival as a species depends on our ability to recognize that our well-being and the well-being of others are in fact one and the same.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#68. If you are a jackal, you will try to reassure. Jackals try to fix people in pain. They can't stand pain, but make matters worse by trying to get rid of it. Put on giraffe ears. Try to hear what they are feeling and needing.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#69. 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

#70. Getting in touch with unmet needs is important to the healing process.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#71. NVC self-forgiveness: connecting with the need we were trying to meet when we took the action that we now regret.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#72. NVC gives us tools and understanding to create a more peaceful state of mind.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#73. 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

#74. This language is from the head. It is a way of mentally classifying people into varying shades of good and bad, right and wrong. Ultimately, it provokes defensiveness, resistance, and counterattack. It is a language of demands.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#75. 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

#76. The best way I can get understanding from another person is to give this person the understanding, too. If I want them to hear my needs and feelings, I first need to empathize.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#77. In these long-standing conflicts, I find that most cases it gets resolved in about twenty minutes after each side can tell me the needs of the other.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#78. Interpretations, criticisms, diagnoses, and judgments of others are actually alienated expressions of our unmet needs.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#79. We are compassionate with ourselves when we are able to embrace all parts of ourselves and recognize the needs and values expressed by each part.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#80. 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

#81. NVC is a reminder; to focus our attention where we are most likely to get our needs met.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#82. When our communication supports compassionate giving and receiving, happiness replaces violence and grieving.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#83. An important aspect of self-compassion is to be able to empathically hold both parts of ourselves-the self that regrets a past action and the self that took the action in the first place.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#84. Focusing on the unmet need (not the judgment) is more likely to get the need met.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#85. The number one rule of our training is empathy before education.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#86. With empathy, I'm fully with them, and not full of them - that's sympathy.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#87. 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

#88. A difficult message to hear is an opportunity to enrich someone's life.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#89. Never connect yourself with the other person's pain. Just hear their need. Leave yourself out of the other person's feelings and needs.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#90. I don't think you can have an authentic connection when one person is diagnosing the other.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#91. At the root of every tantrum and power struggle are unmet needs.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#92. When I am angry I have a judgment and an unmet need.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#93. Tragically, one of the rarest commodities in our culture is empathy. People are hungry for empathy, They don't know how to ask for it.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#94. When it comes to giving advice, never do so unless you've first received a request in writing, signed by a lawyer.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#95. Punishment is the root of violence on our planet.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#96. 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

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

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#98. As soon as you say, "are you feeling X because I ... " Then the Jackal starts to salivate because he can educate the person that he's the cause of his pain.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#99. The punitive use of force tends to generate hostility and to reinforce resistance to the very behavior we are seeking.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#100. 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