Marshall B. Rosenberg Quotes about Communication

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

Instead of playing the game "Making Life Wonderful", we often play the game called "Who's Right". Do you know that game? It's a game where everybody loses.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

NO is always a YES to something else.

Judgments of others contribute to self-fulfilling prophecies.

Nonviolent Communication is a way of keeping our consciousness tuned in moment by moment to that beauty within ourselves and others, and not saying anything that we think might in any way tarnish people's consciousness of their own beauty.

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

When you need empathy, you cannot give empathy.

Criticism, analysis, and insults are tragic expressions of unmet needs.

Regardless of our many differences, we all have the same needs. What differs is the strategy for fulfilling these needs.

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

People have been trained to criticize, insult, and otherwise communicate in ways that create distance among people.

Blaming and punishing others are superficial expressions of anger.

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

When people hear needs, it provokes compassion. When people hear diagnoses, it provokes defensiveness and attack.

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

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

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

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.

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