263 Quotes by Marshall B. Rosenberg

Empathize with silence by listening for the feelings and needs behind it.

The more we use words that in any way imply criticism, the more difficult it is for people to stay connected to the beauty within themselves.

There is a story of a man on all fours under a street lamp, searching for something. A policeman passing by asked what he was doing. “Looking for my car keys,” replied the man, who appeared slightly drunk. “Did you drop them here?” inquired the officer. “No,” answered the man, “I dropped them in the alley.” Seeing the policeman’s baffled expression, the man hastened to explain, “But the light is much better here.

In a Giraffe institution, the head nurse job would be to serve the nurses, not to control them. Teachers are there to serve the students, not control them.

For centuries, the image of the loving woman has been associated with sacrifice and the denial of one’s own needs to take care of others. Because women are socialized to view the caretaking of others as their highest duty, they often learn to ignore their own needs.

We do not look for compromise; rather, we seek to resolve the conflict to everyone’s complete satisfaction.

Many people in fact have very negative associations with needs. They associate needs with being needy, dependant, selfish, and again I think that comes from our history of educating people to fit well into domination structures so that they are obedient and submissive to authority.

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.

NVC is founded on language and communication skills that strengthen our ability to remain human, even under trying conditions.