148 Quotes by Carl R. Rogers

I conclude that if nations follow their past ways, then, because of the speed of world communication of separate views, each society will have to exert more and more coercion to bring about a forced agreement as to what constitutes the real world and its values. Those coerced agreements will differ from nation to nation, from culture to culture. The coercion will destroy individual freedom. We will bring about our own destruction through the clashes caused by different world views.

We live by a perceptual "map" which is never reality itself.

You can't possibly be afraid of death, really, you can only be afraid of life.

People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don't find myself saying, Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner.' I don't try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.

I am isolated. I sit in a glass ball, I see people through a glass wall. I scream, but they do not hear me.- Ellen West

In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?

I regret it when I suppress my feelings too long and they burst forth in ways that are distorted or attacking or hurtful.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

He is learning that the feelings which exist are good enough to live by. They do not have to be coated with a veneer