Nonviolent Communication Quotes

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“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, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“As we've seen, all criticism, attack, insults, and judgments vanish when we focus attention on hearing the feelings and needs behind a message. The more we practice in this way, the more we realize a simple truth: behind all those messages we've allowed ourselves to be intimidated by are just individuals with unmet needs appealing to us to contribute to their well-being. When we receive messages with this awareness, we never feel dehumanized by what others have to say to us. We only feel dehumanized when we get trapped in derogatory images of other people or thoughts of wrongness about ourselves.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“They give the appearance that the professional is obtaining the information necessary to diagnose and then treat the problem. In fact, such intellectual understanding of a problem blocks the kind of presence that empathy requires. When we are thinking about people's words and listening to how they connect with our theories, we are looking at people - we are not with them.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“In a world where we're often judged harshly for identifying and revealing our needs, doing so can be very frightening. Women, in particular, are susceptible to criticism. 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.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“When we combine observation with evaluation, we decrease the likelihood that others will hear our intended message. Instead, they are apt to hear criticism and thus resist whatever we are saying.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“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. I believe life-alienating communication is rooted in views of human nature that have exerted their influence for several centuries. These views stress humans' innate evil and deficiency, and a need for education to control our inherently undesirable nature. Such education often leaves us questioning whether there is something wrong with whatever feelings and needs we may be experiencing. We learn early to cut ourselves off from what's going on within ourselves.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“We all pay dearly when people respond to our values and needs not out of a desire to give from the heart but out of fear, guilt, or shame. Sooner or later, we will experience the consequences of diminished goodwill on the part of those who comply with our values out of a sense of either external or internal coercion.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“Everyone clings to their history with a vengeance because it anchors their identity.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“In his book How to Make Yourself Miserable, Dan Greenburg demonstrates through humor the insidious power that comparative thinking can exert over us. He suggests that if readers have a sincere desire to make life miserable for themselves, they might learn to compare themselves to other people.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships

“In situations where there is no opportunity for communication, such as in instances of imminent danger, we may need to resort to the protective use of force. The intention behind the protective use of force is to prevent injury or injustice, never to punish or to cause individuals to suffer, repent, or change. The punitive use of force tends to generate hostility and to reinforce resistance to the very behavior we are seeking. Punishment damages goodwill and self-esteem, and shifts our attention from the intrinsic value of an action to external consequences. Blaming and punishing fail to contribute to the motivations we would like to inspire in others. Humanity has been sleeping —and still sleeps— lulled within the narrowly confining joys of its closed loves. —Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, theologian and scientist”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships

“Seu principal mérito é nos ensinar a nos colocarmos no lugar do outro, desenvolvendo a empatia, que é de grande ajuda até em casos mais difíceis de ruptura e má comunicação.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Comunicação não violenta - Nova edição: Técnicas para aprimorar relacionamentos pessoais e profissionais

“Nonviolent Communication can change the world. More importantly, it can change your life. I cannot recommend it highly enough.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships

“When our consciousness is focused on what we need, we are naturally stimulated toward creative possibilities for how to get that need met. In contrast, the moralistic judgements we use when blaming ourselves tend to obscure such possibilities and perpetuate a state of self-punishment.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing. 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, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“Intellectual understanding of a problem blocks the kind of presence that empathy requires. When we are thinking about people's words and listening to how they connect to our theories, we are looking at people - we are not with them.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“The more we interpret noncompliance as rejection, the more likely our requests will be heard as demands, This leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy, for the more people hear demands, the less they enjoy being around us.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“Nonviolent communication does not mandate that we remain completely objective nd refrain from evaluating. It only requires that we maintain a separation between our observations and our evaluations. Nonviolent communication is a process language that discourages static generalizations, instead, evaluations are to be based in observations specific to time and context.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“Si quieres confundir cualquier situación puedo decirte cómo hacerlo: Mezcla lo que hice con tu reacción al respecto.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Comunicación no Violenta: Un Lenguaje de vida

“Always a mask Held in the slim hand whitely Always she had a mask before her face— Truly the wrist Holding it lightly Fitted the task: Sometimes however Was there a shiver, Fingertip quiver, Ever so slightly— Holding the mask? For years and years and years I wondered But dared not ask And then— I blundered, Looked behind the mask, To find Nothing— She had no face. She had become Merely a hand Holding a mask With grace. —Author unknown”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships

“Somos peligrosos cuando no somos conscientes de nuestra responsabilidad hacia cómo nos comportamos, pensamos y sentimos.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Comunicación no Violenta: Un Lenguaje de vida

“Mucho antes de llegar a la adultez aprendí a comunicarme de una forma impersonal que no requería revelar lo que estaba sucediendo dentro de mí.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Comunicación no Violenta: Un Lenguaje de vida

“Para reavivar una conversación, interrumpamos con empatía.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Comunicación no Violenta: Un Lenguaje de vida

“When keeping our focus on needs, we express our own needs, clearly understand the needs of others, and avoid any language that implies wrongness of the other party.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Living Nonviolent Communication: Practical Tools to Connect and Communicate Skillfully in Every Situation

“First, we observe what is actually happening in a situation: what are we observing others saying or doing that is either enriching or not enriching our life? The trick is to be able to articulate this observation without introducing any judgment or evaluation—to simply say what people are doing that we either like or don’t like. Next, we state how we feel when we observe this action: are we hurt, scared, joyful, amused, irritated? And thirdly, we say what needs of ours are connected to the feelings we have identified.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships

“Anger is a result of life alienated thinking that is disconnected from needs. It indicates that we have moved up to our head to analyse and judge somebody rather than focus on which of our needs is not being met.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: Create Your Life, Your Relationships, and Your World in Harmony with Your Values by Marshall B. Rosenberg, Sounds True

“Anger is a result of life alienated thinking that is disconnected from needs. It indicates that we have moved up to our head to analyse and judge somebody rather than focus on which of our needs is not being met”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: Create Your Life, Your Relationships, and Your World in Harmony with Your Values by Marshall B. Rosenberg, Sounds True

“What I want in my life is compassion,
a flow between myself and others based
on a mutual giving from the heart. —Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships

“If you want to use force to protect your family, guard yourself from attack, fight against wrongdoing, prevent crime, and engage in a so-called “good war,” you have been co-opted by the siren song of violence.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships

“an important form of self-compassion is to make choices motivated purely by our desire to contribute to life rather than out of fear, guilt, shame, duty, or obligation.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships