Quotes

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Here is a list of NVC quotes, aphorisms, and endorsements, which can be very useful in education and outreach. Hopefully you will find each quote to illustrate a core NVC concept, or will inspire you to learn more.

Since this is a wiki page, anyone can edit it. So, please feel free to add to this list!


NVC Quotes, Aphorisms, and Endorsements

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you. - African Proverb

Only when your consciousness is totally focused on the moment you are in can you receive whatever gift, lesson, or delight that moment has to offer. -- Barbara De Angelis

Nonviolent Communication has so much to teach even advanced meditators. Learning NVC has helped me to apply all that I've been cultivating on the cushion - compassion, acceptance, understanding -off the cushion, in the world. -- Christine Aquilino, member, Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, Cambridge MA

In addition to saving our marriage, Marshall's work is helping us to repair our relationships with our grown children and to relate more deeply with our parents and siblings. Marshall has shown a way to not only live, speak and act nonviolently, but a way to do so without sacrificing or


compromising yourself or others. If angels do manifest in physical form here on this earth, then Marshall Rosenberg must be one. -- A reader in Arizona

Marshall has gathered and presented in a clear and convincing way the essential nuts and bolts of speaking skillfully. With generous examples of what doesn't work and useful, practical exercises of what does work towards clear communication, he makes a strong case for changing the quality of our relationships. Nonviolent Communication is a valuable resource for everyone. -- Steve Armstrong, teacher, Vipassana Metta, Maui HI; Insight Meditation Society, Barre MA

Suddenly, out of the blue, she asks me what time it is. She can see I am not wearing a watch and I am not sitting near the clock. We have no plans for the day. I get irritated. "I don't have any idea what time it is, why don't you get up and find out for yourself", I say, my voice dripping ice. ... In minutes we are having a low-level spat. ... Forgetting to decode that she was asking me to reaffirm our connection, I got irritated. ... If I knew that every question, every time we reach out towards the other, for whatever superficial reason, really means "Do you love me?" and/or "Will you continue to love me?" and/or "Do you know I love you?", then I might have answered her [differently, and] probably neither of us would have worried about the time. -- Chip August, Source

Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain. -- Marcus Aurelius

A boy carries out suggestions more wholeheartedly when he understands their aim. -- Sir Robert Baden-Powell (founder of the Scout movement)

That's all nonviolence is - organized love. -- Joan Baez

We've developed new habits of thinking that help us resolve conflict peacefully, communicate more effectively as a team, and to increase morale, profits and productivity. -- Valerie Becker, director, human resources; Horizon Moving Systems (part of the United Van Lines network)

The NVC process is truly an effective tool in solving problems and differences among individuals. I hold great hope for the tools NVC offers as a means of being a successful organization from top to bottom. -- Scott Beethe, practice administrator

You can observe a lot just by watching -- Yogi Berra

Nonviolent Communication is an extremely useful tool for improving communication and cultivating compassion. NVC ? expressed in simple, articulate, useful steps ? has the capacity to be as liberating as anything which Buddhism has to offer. -- Ed Brown, teacher, Zen Center, San Francisco CA / Tassajara, Green Gulch CA

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out. -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

In NVC, we don't hear ultimatums, demands, or criticisms. All communication is either an SOS or a care package. -- Kelly Bryson

The ability to control how love and sexuality are dispensed allows the dynamic of domination to emerge in a couple or in a culture. Love and sexuality can be spiritual forces for the nurturing of harmony within individuals and groups as long as the sacredness and primacy of free will and autonomy is maintained. -- Kelly Bryson

Better than a thousand useless words is one single word, hearing which one attains peace. -- Buddha, Dhammapada

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. -- Buddha

He insulted me, he hurt me, he defeated me, he robbed me / those who think such thoughts will not be free from hate.
He insulted me, he hurt me, he defeated me, he robbed me / those who think not such thought will be free from hate.
For hate is not conquered by hate, hate is conquered by love / this is a law eternal. -- Buddha, from The Dhammapada

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart give yourself to it. -- Buddha

My use of NVC has totally transformed my practice. I have changed from an irritated, impatient practitioner to a compassionate, understanding and loving health care provider. -- Lt. JoAnn Burton, RN, Newport Beach, CA

Nonviolent Communication has positively changed both my personal life and medical practice. I now listen not just with my mind but also from the heart. -- Anton Butie, MD, Del Mar, CA

I had come to realize that my old communication style was very judgmental and full of faultfinding. Both my work associates and I were unhappy. My life is significantly changed due to practicing Nonviolent Communication. I am more settled and relaxed even when I am busy. I no longer feel the need to discover fault or place blame. Everyone is happy to be working with me for the first time in my 33 years of owning and operating my own businesses. -- A businessman in California

Applying these principles to my life and using this easy four-step process has helped me change old conditioned beliefs and ways of acting. Nonviolent Communication allowed me to overcome my toxic conditioning and find the loving parent and person that was locked inside. Dr. Rosenberg has created a way to transform the violence in the world. -- A nurse in California

Nonviolent Communication allowed me to overcome my toxic conditioning and find the loving parent and person that was locked inside. -- A nurse in California

Don't do anything that isn't play -- Joseph Campbell, quoted by Marshall Rosenberg, The Basics of Nonviolent Communications, DVD-2

I have used the NVC Companion Workbook now in two prison facilities. It has been a wonderful tool for men and women who are committed to gaining useful life skills in some of the toughest of environments. -- Karen Campbell, workforce/lifeskills coordinator, Coffee Creek Corrections Facility

I believe the principles and techniques in this book, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, can literally change the world, but more importantly, they can change the quality of your life with your spouse, your children, your neighbors, your co-workers and everyone else you interact with. I cannot recommend it highly enough. -- Jack Canfield, author, Chicken Soup for the Soul Series

When someone shouts "F-ck you!", what they really mean is, "I am so in pain that I can't express my real needs and feelings." -- Caverly, source

When I am angry, three things are true: 1) There's something I'm wanting I'm not getting. 2) I'm telling myself that someone ought to be giving it to me. 3) I'm about to speak or behave in a way that will virtually assure that I won't get what I want, or, at least assure that even if I get it, it will not be given the way I really want. -- Alex Censor, CNVC trainer, after Marshall Rosenberg, circa 1989

To listen well, is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well, and is as essential to all true conversation -- Chinese Proverb

Giving connects two people, the giver and the receiver, and this connection gives birth to a new sense of belonging. -- Deepak Chopra

Marshall Rosenberg provides us with the most effective tools to foster health and relationships. Nonviolent Communication connects soul to soul, creating a lot of healing. It is the missing element in what we do. -- Deepak Chopra, author, How to Know God and Ageless Body and Timeless Mind

We should all be grateful to Marshall Rosenberg. He provides us with the most effective tools to foster health and relationships. Nonviolent Communication connects soul to soul, creating a lot of healing and helps us express honestly from the heart what are people doing that is or is not in harmony with our needs. NVC is the missing element in what we do. -- Deepak Chopra, author, How to Know God and Ageless Body and Timeless Mind

Jaw jaw is better than war war. -- Winston Churchill

I'm now finding myself communicating my needs and my business needs more clearly, with better results, and I'm spending less energy and time achieving it. -- Keith Cooper, owner, Alphagraphics Palo Verde; Tucson, Arizona

If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going. -- Irwin Corey

Empathy is full presence to what's alive in the other person at this moment. -- John Cunningham, CNVC Trainer

I want to thank you for the Nonviolent Communication book. It is a fantastic book. It's helping me to reflect on a lot of things. It means a lot to me to have people believe in me. Everyone that received the books here at the prison appreciates your support. Thank you and God bless you all. -- T. D., Woman's Facility, Norco State Prison, Norco CA

The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished. -- Daniel W. Davenport

Communication is either connection or confusion. Connection meets needs, confusion doesn't. Most communication is confusion. We need to change that. NVC provides clarity and facilitates connection, which is what it's all about. -- Dee Davidson

If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. -- Moshe Dayan

If you can dream it, you can do it. -- Walt Disney

I appreciate how well Nonviolent Communication reduces a very complex and needful topic to utter simplicity. -- HAL DOIRON, Director, Columbine Community Citizen's Task Force

We never do things that are wrong, we do things that aren't in harmony with our needs. -- Doug Dolstad, CNVC Trainer

Everything has changed, except our way of thinking. -- Albert Einstein

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts. -- Albert Einstein

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. -- Albert Einstein

The significant problems of our time cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -- Albert Einstein

Relationships with our children, spouses, parents, loved ones, and people in positions of authority often tend to trigger emotional reactions, which seem out of proportion to the immediate stress at hand. Nonviolent or Compassionate Communication offers a way for us to practice being mindful of our emotions with the focus of attention on our use of language and communication. -- Bruce Eisenorf, MD

We are disturbed not by events, but by the views which we take of them. -- Epictetus

Marshall Rosenberg has a genius for developing and teaching practical skills urgently needed for a less violent, more caring world. -- Riane Eisler, author, The Chalice and the Blade, Tomorrow's Children and The Power of Partnership

Nonviolent Communication is a powerful tool for peace and partnership. It shows us how to listen empathically and also communicate our authentic feelings and needs. Marshall Rosenberg has a genius for developing and teaching practical skills urgently needed for a less violent, more caring world. -- RIANE EISLER, author of The Chalice and The Blade, Tomorrow's Children, and The Power of Partnership

Schools in which students and teachers relate as partners-where Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication is part of every interaction are communities of learning, rather than top-down, impersonal factories. Young people begin to see school as a safe and exciting place of exploration where they can share feelings and ideas, and where each child is recognized, valued and nurtured. -- Riane Eisler, author, The Chalice and the Blade, Tomorrow's Children and The Power of Partnership

I have never met a person whose greatest need was anything other than real, unconditional love. You can find it in a simple act of kindness toward someone who needs help. There is no mistaking love. You feel it in your heart. It is the common fiber of life, the flame that heals our soul, energizes our spirit and supplies passion to our lives. It is our connection to God and to each other. -- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within. -- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have been volunteering and leading a cadre of volunteers in a Low-Medium Security federal men's prison in Victoria, BC (Canada) for the past seven years. It was, in fact, at the prison that I first heard Marshall speak. I have since incorporated NVC consciousness in my work with this group as well as in other areas in my life and have found it profoundly life-changing. I have a huge gratitude to my friend for her insisting that I make time to attend that life-changing workshop with Marshall last year. -- Michele Favarger, volunteer, Low-Medium security federal men's prison, Victoria BC

Rosenberg brings us globally critical evidence that how/what we speak reflects who we are and embodies what we will become. -- Dr. Barbara E. Fields, executive director, The Association for Global New Thought

It isn't where you come from, it's where you're going that counts. -- Ella Fitzgerald

Nonviolent Communication has catalyzed a process of clarification/ healing/ empowerment in me that I could never have imagined. This process has impacted every area of my life and continues to unfold. For me, it unifies the spiritual truths I've found in all the world's religions. It facilitates and strengthens connections to others and its truths are experientially testable.... I stand in awe of the model this book teaches as a means of learning how to do love and of its elegant simplicity. -- A reader in Florida

It seems to me that whereas power usually means power-over, the power of some person or group over some other person or group, it is possible to develop the conception of power-with, a jointly developed power, a co-active, not a coercive power. -- Mary Parker Follett

Cruel though it may sound, we must see to it that the patient’s suffering, to a degree that is in some way or other effective, does not come to an end prematurely. If, owing to the symptoms having been taken apart and having lost their value, his suffering becomes mitigated, we must reinstate it elsewhere in the form of some appreciable privation; otherwise we run the danger of never achieving any improvements except quite insignificant and transitory ones. -- Sigmund Freud, 1919 paper “Lines of Advance in Psychoanalytic Therapy” page 163 of volume XVII in the standard edition

The experience of separateness arouses anxiety; it is, indeed, the source of all anxiety. -- Erich Fromm, German psychoanalyst & writer, The Art of Loving (Perennial Classics), Page: 8

Marshall took nonviolence a step further - beyond Gandhi. -- Johan Galtung, Founder of the first peace institute in Oslo, 1959

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 Gandhi, president, M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary, the evil it does is permanent. -- Mahatma Gandhi

Namaste. I honour the place in your where the entire universe resides... a place of light, of love, of truth, of peace, of wisdom. I honour the place in you where when you are in that place and I am in that place there is only one of us. -- Mohandas K. Gandhi

The Compassionate Classroom is a fabulous book! If teachers will read it, they can transform their classrooms. -- William Glasser, MD, author, Schools Without Failure and The Quality School

The extraordinary language of Nonviolent Communication is changing how parents relate to children, teachers to students, and how we all related to each other and even to ourselves. It is precise, disciplined, and enormously compassionate. Most important, once we study NVC we can't ignore the potential for transformation that lies in any difficult relationship - if we only bother to communicate with skill and empathy. -- Bernie Glassman, president and co-founder, Peacemaker Community

The consciousness of Nonviolent Communication and Buddhism feed each other, deepen each other and support each other in a beautiful, mutual dance of deepening love. -- Mark J. Goodman, Vipassana Meditation and a heart connection connection to Thich Nhat Hanh and his lineage, Seattle WA

Without an ounce of hesitation, I can say this book and these ideas have had a profound, deep, and lasting impact on my life, improved my relationships, increased the clarity and consciousness with which I use language, and strengthened my intention to live a loving, compassionate life. -- Mark J. Goodman

Animating compassion into living moment-to-moment experience seems a formidable task for novices on the Dharma path. For convicts immersed in an environment which intensifies and reinforces conflict, discovering a step-by-step methodology advocating compassion through communication is enormously liberating. -- Dow Gordon, Vipassana (Insight) Meditation, Minimum Security Unit of the Monroe Correctional Complex, Monroe, WA

For convicts immersed in an environment which intensifies and reinforces conflict, discovering a step-by-step methodology advocating compassion through communication is enormously liberating. More than solely a potent means to communicate, the NVC process effects fundamental and irrevocable shifts in patterns of perception and interaction. -- Dow Gordon, Vipassana (Insight) Meditation, Minimum Security Unit of the Monroe Correctional Complex, Monroe, WA

We know that when people learn to communicate effectively with each other, their lives and their relationships can be truly transformed. This book gives people both a way of expressing their needs congruently and non-blamefully and a way of listening so others feel not just heard, but understood. -- Dr. Thomas Gordon, author, Parent Effectiveness Training

Marshall Rosenberg's dynamic communication techniques transform potential conflicts into peaceful dialogues. You'll learn simple tools to defuse arguments and create compassionate connections with your family, friends, and other acquaintances. I highly recommend this book. -- John Gray, Ph.D., author, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus

Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, "You owe me." Look what happens; with a love like that, it lights up the whole sky. -- Hafiz

We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness. -- Thich Nhat Hanh

There is a Boddhisattva, whose name is Avalokitesvara, in Vietnamise we call her Quan The Âm, in Chinese, Quan Yin. It means: "Listening deeply to the sound of the cries of the world". And listening deeply is the practice of mindfullness. But if you are full of pain, full of anxiety, full of projections, and especially full of prejudices. Full of ideas. And notions. It may be very difficult for you to practice deep listening. You are too full. And that is why to practice in order for you to have space to have freedom within to have some joy within is very important for deep listening. Avalokitesvara, Quan Yin she practice deep listening to herself, and to the world, outside. She practice touching with her ears. -- Thich Nhat Hanh, The Present Moment (audio tape), Part 5.

As far as the the human relationship is concerned, the situation is very negative. We have lost our power to communicate. We cannot talk to each other, even in our family. We have destroyed the bridge that connects us to the other person. Because our daily life of living in forgetfulness, we continue to water the seeds of suffering in the other person. And the other person continue to water the seeds of unhappiness in us. So we are afraid of the other person. We become more and more alone. -- Thich Nhat Hanh, The Present Moment (audio tape), Part 5.

You can practice deep listening in order to relieve the suffering in us, and in the other person. That kind of listening is described as compassionate listening. You listen only for the purpose of relieving suffering in the other person. -- Thich Nhat Hanh, The Present Moment (audio tape), Part 5.

The art of listening needs it highest development in listening to oneself; our most important task is to develop an ear that can really hear what we're saying. -- Sidney Harris, columnist

Dr. Rosenberg has added his thoughtful voice to an important conversation. His approach is insightful, provocative, and is sure to spark discussion. Speak Peace helps engage us in a vital dialogue that allows us to look within and ask ourselves what role we can play in making the world a better place. -- David Hart, CEO, Association for Conflict Resolution (not endorsed by ACR, title provided for identification purposes only)

Tell me whom you love, and I will tell you who you are. -- Houssaye

By temporarily putting our solutions aside, we learn how to offer what is really needed first. Then our solutions can be received. -- Holley Humphrey, CNVC Trainer

While there are other parenting books with insight into childhood, Parenting from Your Heart goes a step further, showing parents how to put theory into practice with their own child in a realistic, compassionate and effective way. This book is worth its weight in gold!? -- Jan Hunt, author, The Natural Child and director, The Natural Child Project Society

The healthy mind challenges its own assumptions. -- The I Ching

My relationship with my husband, which was good already, has become even better. I have taught the method to many parents who have reported having gained a deeper understanding of their children, thus enhancing their relationship and decreasing tension and conflict. -- A reader in Illinois

If you care about healing the offender and the victims in the community, then it's paramount that beginnings be made. The Nonviolent Communication process is a very large step toward this goal. -- A prison inmate

The single toughest, most dangerous opponent I'd ever faced the one that truly hurt me the most, causing me to spend 30 years of my life behind bars was my own anger and fear. I write these words now, a gray haired old man, hoping to God before you suffer what I've suffered that it will cause you to listen and learn Nonviolent Communication. It will teach you how to recognize anger before it becomes violence, and how to understand, deal with, and take control of the rage you may feel. -- A prisoner writing to fellow inmates

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. For as you judge others you will also be judged. -- Jesus

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. -- Carl Jung

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. -- Carl Gustav Jung

Consider practicing NVC for one year before trying to teach it. -- Dian Killian, CNVC trainer

Like Noam Chomsky, Rosenberg's work is intrinsically radical, it subverts our whole status-quo system of power: between children and adults, the sane and the psychotic, the criminal and the law. Rosenberg's distinction between punitive and protective force should be required reading for anyone making foreign policy or policing our streets. -- D. Killian, reporter, On The Front Line, Cleveland Free Times

Rosenberg starts with the question: What happens to disconnect us from our compassion, leading us to behave violently and exploitively? Rosenberg makes some challenging points: that compliments and apologies operate in a system of oppression; that rewards are as harmful as punishment, that killing is the easy way out. His distinction between punitive and protective force-and how to discern when force is necessary'should be required reading for anyone making foreign policy or policing our streets. Demanding the ultimate form of responsibility? and vulnerability - it's no wonder that Rosenberg has received little media and mass attention. Well-written and laid out this book is accessible and easy to read. -- D. KILLIAN, On The Front Line, Cleveland Free Times

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence, but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him. -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

You can have no influence over those for whom you have underlying contempt. -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I feel very blessed that Vipassana Meditation and Nonviolent Communication came into my life right around the same time. These two powerful tools complement one another in deeply profound ways. Nonviolent Communication, for me, is the how to of Right Speech, communicating in ways that elicit compassion, understanding, connection and clarity. My relationships are now nourishing and clear, my actions are more deliberate and conscious, and my service to the world is coming from a more peaceful and positive place within. -- Tricia King, Bellingham WA

Action has meaning only in relationship and without understanding relationship, action on any level will only breed conflict. The understanding of relationship is infinitely more important than the search for any plan of action. -- J. Krishnamurti

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it. -- Jiddu Krishnamurti

The highest form of intelligence is the ability to observe without evaluating -- Jiddu Krishnamurti (quoted in Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 2003a, p. 10)

Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear. So violence isn't merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper, and we are inquiring into the very depths of violence. -- Jiddu Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known, ch. 6

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind. -- Jiddu Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known, ch. 6

[I]t is important to understand, not intellectually but actually in your daily life, how you have built images about your wife, your husband, your neighbor, your child, your country, your leaders, your politicians, your gods; you have nothing but images. The images create the space between you and what you observe and in that space there is conflict, so what we are going to find out now together is whether it is possible to be free of the space we create, not only outside ourselves but in ourselves, the space which divides people in all their relationships... -- Jiddu Krishnamurti

This is who I am. Not everybody has to like it. -- Lisa Kudrow

Compassion is the radicalism of our age. -- Dalai Lama

What is the meaning of life? To be happy and useful. -- Dalai Lama

Eat by Choice, Not by Habit combines the author's humor, deep compassion for others and knowledge about food in a way that makes me eager to follow her lead toward healthy eating-and more importantly, toward a healthy attitude about eating. She aptly teaches us all to frame our food issues in a language that is both liberating and comforting. -- Judith Hanson Lasater, Ph.D., physical therapist and author of 30 Essential Yoga Poses

Using NVC was vital to healing my relationship with my sister; and for me, it serves as a guide for applying Buddhist practice to communication. -- Jane Lazar, Zen Student in Residence / NVC Trainer

Changing the way the world has worked for 5,000 years sounds daunting, but Nonviolent Communication helps liberate us from ancient patterns of violence. -- Francis Lefkowitz, reporter, Body & Soul

Making a request without revealing the feeling/need takes all the joy out of other's service. -- Lucy Leu, CNVC Trainer

I highly recommend Nonviolent Communication to anyone interested in resolving conflicts, creating more intimate relationships, or exploring the connection between language and violence. -- Kate Lin, reporter, The New Times

Nonviolent Communication is filled with stories of mediations in many different situations: families, corporations, cops and gangs, Rwandan village tribal chiefs, Israelis and Palestinians. The author describes how, in numerous conflicts, once enemies have been able to hear each other's needs, they are able to connect compassionately and find new solutions to previously impossible impasses. He has compiled his ideas into an easy-to-read book that clearly explains this communication model. If you want to learn ways of more skillful speech, I highly recommend this book. -- DIANA LION, Turning Wheel Magazine, Buddhist Peace Fellowship

Rosenberg describes how, in numerous conflicts, once enemies have been able to hear each other's needs, they are able to connect compassionately and find new solutions to previously impossible impasses. If you want to learn ways of more skillful speech I highly recommend this clear, easy-to-read book. -- Diana Lion, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Turning Wheel Magazine

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. -- Audre Lourde

The world will change for the better when people decide that they are sick and tired of being sick and tired of the way the world is, and decide to change themselves. -- Sidney Madwed

Sorrow and anger are two forms of unrequited desire. -- His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi Mahaswamigal

To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well -- John Marshall

As a professional in the field, I have read many books touting most of the topics covered in this book. But today I am ordering SEVERAL of these, particularly for the teenagers in my life. This book practices what it preaches, and I found the step-by-step approach, exercises, and examples to be clear and easy to practice. -- A reader in Maryland

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life practices what it preaches, and I found the step-by-step approach, exercises and examples to be clear and easy to practice. -- A reader in Maryland

For those of us who live our parenting responsibilities as a call for inner growth and social transformation, Parenting From Your Heart offers a unique perspective. Filled with insights and exercises, it helps us prioritize connection, attend to everyone's needs, look for the needs behind challenging behaviors, and to share power with our children. -- Stephanie Mattei, La Leche League

I am sure that each time I read this book, I will become better at empathetically responding to people who up to now I had decided were too toxic to deal with. -- Carmen Matthews, San Diego CA

One friend, one person who is truly understanding, who take the trouble to listen to us as we consider our problems, can change our whole outlook on the work. -- Elton Mayo, behavioral scientist

Not only does the NVC process improve communication, but it works within us, requiring us to examine our own emotions and ways of thinking about others before we speak. Thus it is an excellent tool for personal growth and transformation as well as peaceful communication. "Let peace begin with me" could be the NVC motto. -- Kittrell McCord, Tucson Community Meditation Center, Tucson AZ

Nonviolent Communication is a simple process that eliminates the competitive, adversarial, and violence provocative style of communication that has infected most of our lives. -- Chuck McDougal, book reviewer

We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results. -- Herman Melville

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence ... [and that is] activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful. -- Thomas Merton, "An Innate Violence", quoted in Sabbath

NVC is an awareness practice masquerading as a communication tool. -- Kit Miller, former Chair of the Board of the International Center for Nonviolent Communication

The Compassionate Classroom demonstrates the connection between learning and the relationships between students and teachers. It is filled with exercises and role-plays that could be introduced to the classroom to enhance understanding. This is a great curriculum development resource!? -- Jerry Mintz, Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO)

Marshall's unique message gives teachers easy steps for peaceful communication and a new way to work with children and parents. -- BARBARA MOFFITT, Executive Director, National Center for Montessori Educators

When I discovered the NVC process, I immediately saw how congruent it was with my Buddhist practice. NVC really allows me to manifest my compassionate nature in my daily life. -- Pascale Molho, Kanzeon Sangha; Paris, France

Life is what we make it. Always has been, always will be. -- Grandma Moses

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts. -- the late New York Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

The strong is not the one who overcomes the people by his strength, but the strong is the one who controls himself in a moment of anger. -- The Prophet Muhammad

Teachers, parents and school administrators: Today's teachers can create a Planet of Peace. The communication process you will learn by reading Nonviolent Communication is the cornerstone. -- Robert Muller, former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and co-founder of the University for Peace in Costa Rica

Speak Peace sums up decades of healing and peacework. It would be hard to list all the kinds of people who can benefit from reading this book, because it's really any and all of us. -- Michael Nagler, author, Is There No Other Way: The Search for a Nonviolent Future

The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them. -- Ralph Nichols

Nonviolent Communication and trainings in the NVC process are an invaluable, skillful means for enriching communication with oneself and with others in a manner that eases the suffering in human relationships. -- Nicolee Jikyo Miller-McMahan, Three Treasures Zen Community

I highly recommend reading this book, and applying the NVC process it teaches. It is a significant first step towards changing our communication and creating a compassionate world. -ARUN GANDHI, Founder/President, M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence

We have lived traumatic moments over and over again-moments of fear and panic, incomprehension, frustrations, disappointment, and injustice of all sorts, with no hope of escape.... [The NVC process] offers us a peaceful alternative for ending this interminable Rwandan conflict. -- Theodore Nyilidandi, Rwandan Dept. of Foreign Affairs; Kigali, Rwanda

Speak Peace in a World of Conflict offers a gift of spirit, theory and nonviolent communication experience from which every seeker of peace within and without can learn. It complements John Burton's Deviance, Terrorism and War as a guide to mutual need-fulfilling processes of problem-solving to realize nonviolent conditions of global life. -- Glenn D. Paige, author, Nonkilling Global Political Science; founder, Center for Global Nonviolence

You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time. -- M. Scott Peck

I have found the NVC practice to be a powerful complement to the Buddhist teachings on right speech. While the Dharma helps me know which forms of speech to avoid, NVC shows me how to use language in ways that build more compassionate connections with others. -- Tom Pedulla, member, Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, Cambridge MA

No matter what the issue may be that serves to separate us from others, whether it is sexual orientation, gender, or racial differences, NVC is a process that can bring us back into connection, and help us to honor and appreciate our differences and celebrate our common needs. -- Carol Placer, Association of Women in Psychology, Northern Arizona contact

No matter what the issue may separate us, NVC can help us appreciate our differences and celebrate our common needs. -- Carol Placer, Association of Women in Psychology, Northern Arizona contact

A good listener truly wants to know the speaker. -- John Powell S.J., Will The Real Me Please Stand Up?

Many books on communication are strong on theory but impractical on application. Marshall Rosenberg's instant classic is the stand-out exception. It is clear and compelling in its logic and flat-out inspiring in its inviting exposition of usable techniques and strategies. If this book is read by enough people, the world will transform. -- Hugh Prather, author, The Little Book of Letting Go, Shining Through, and Morning Notes

Change in the body must start with change in thought. If you have been unable to eat smart, despite repeated attempts, Eat by Choice, Not by Habit is the book you have been waiting for. -- Linda Prout, nutritionist and nutrition director

Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him. -- Simone Weil quotes

Yes, the past can hurt, but the way I see it, you either run from it, or you learn from it. -- Rafiki, in The Lion King

Connecting the individual consciousness together within yourself, is the gift of the giver. It is with a touch of love that your hands will recieve all that is hidden behind love. The touch is mine. -- Rasa, Testament of Will, Green 16

The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well~intentioned words. -- Rachel Naomi Remen

In our present age of uncivil discourse and mean-spirited demagoguery, racial hatreds and ethnic intolerance, the principles and practices outlined in Nonviolent Communication are as timely as they are necessary to the peaceful resolution of conflicts, personal or public, domestic or international. -- MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW, Taylor's Shelf

Buddhism and NVC are rooms in the same house. By examining the tools of the mind, language and symbol, the true nature of the mind becomes clearer. I strongly recommend NVC as a highly effective practice for developing clarity and genuine compassion. -- Lewis Rhames, Vipassana Insight Meditation, Minimal Security Unit,

Dr. Rosenberg has brought the simplicity of successful communication into the foreground. No matter what issue you're facing, his strategies for communicating with others will set you up to win every time. -- Anthony Robbins, author, Awaken the Giant Within and Unlimited Power

The principles of Nonviolent Communication taught by Dr. Rosenberg are instrumental in creating an extraordinary and fulfilling quality of life. His compassionate and inspiring message cuts right to the heart of successful communication. -- TONY ROBBINS, author of Awaken the Giant Within, Unlimited Power, and PowerTalk!

In Nonviolent Communication you will find an amazingly effective language for saying what's on your mind and in your heart. Like so many essential and elegant systems, it's simple on the surface, challenging to use in the heat of the moment and powerful in its results. -- Vicki Robin, co-author, Your Money or Your Life

We learned to speak but not communicate and that has led to so much unnecessary personal and social misery. In [NVC] you will find an amazingly effective language for saying what's on your mind and in your heart. Like so many essential and elegant systems, it's simple on the surface, challenging to use in the heat of the moment and powerful in its results. -- Vicki Robin, author of Your Money or Your Life

If I can listen to what he can tell me, if I can understand how it seems to him; if I can see its personal meaning for him, if I can sense the emotional flavor which it has for him, then I will be releasing potent forces of change in him. -- Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person

[Listening] means entering the private perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it. It involves being sensitive, moment by moment, to the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person.... To be with another in this ways means that for the time being, you lay aside your own views and values in order to enter another’s world without prejudice. In some sense it means that you lay aside yourself .... -- Carl Rogers

Man’s inability to communicate is a result of his failure to listen effectively, skillfully, and with understanding to another person. -- Carl Rogers, psychologist

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. -- Eleanor Roosevelt

My needs are happy to meet your needs! -- Jyoti Rose (Jodi Gross)

While I recognize you are not the only person who can meet these needs, you are my favorite strategy. -- Jyoti Rose (Jodi Gross)

Years of meditation and spiritual study left me with discouragement at my inability to implement the resulting high ideals. The Nonviolent Communication process turned out to be the liberating key that is showing me how to put spiritual teachings into concrete practice in my daily life. -- Lin Rose, Bellevue WA

A difficult message is a chance to enrich someone's life. -- Marshall Rosenberg

Also, think about your intentionality — are you getting lost in the method? or coming from the intentionality, the purpose? You don’t want to do the mechanics without the consciousness. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg, 2-day advanced intensive

A need is life seeking expression within us. -- Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D.

After the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, millions of people throughout the world are feeling deep pain and grief. They feel outraged, scared, powerless -- and very vulnerable. Many have a deep need to feel safe again. They long for a world where they can live in peace. Others have a deep desire to get even. They long for revenge And retribution. Currently, the United States has decided that it must take action, and other countries have decided to join them. Some people want the goal of these actions to be peace and safety; some want these actions to focus on retaliation and punishment. This presents a real problem: If our leaders base their actions on retaliation and punishment, I believe they cannot achieve the goal of lasting world safety and peace. -- Marshall Rosenberg, La Crescenta, CA, September 27, 2001

All human actions are an attempt to meet needs. -- Marshall Rosenberg

All people ever say is: THANK YOU (a celebration of life) and PLEASE (an opportunity to make life more wonderful). -- Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D.

All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished. -- Marshall Rosenberg

Very often, the way love is defined, it does violence to both people. It almost makes them a slave to the other. For example, if to be in love, or to be married, it means that I'm responsible for the other person's happiness, now we get into this guilt game, where if they're upset, I'm at fault. Soon, that makes the person we are closest to about as much fun to be around as a prolonged dental appointment. -- Marshall Rosenberg, "NVC and Corporations pt 2", Farther down the Rabbit Hole show w/Paula Gloria. Source

Any evaluation which implies rightness or wrongness is a tragic, suicidal expression of an unmet need. Tragic, first because it decreases our likelihood of getting our need met! Even if we think it. And secondly, because it increases the likelihood of violence. That's why I'm suggesting any evaluation which implies rightness or wrongness is a tragic, suicidal expression of an unmet need. Say the need! Learn a need-consciousness. -- Marshall Rosenberg, The Basics of Nonviolent Communication, DVD-1

Any time you throw pain at a Jackal without a clear present request, within a millisecond he’ll jump in. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg, 2-day advanced intensive

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, 2-day advanced intensive

Behind intimidating messages are simply people appealing to us to meet their needs. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

Be very slow to go into looking for solutions. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg, 2-day advanced intensive

Domination cultures teach us a way of thinking that serves the structure, not life. Perhaps the most important human need is the need to make contribute to life, to enrich life, to make life more wonderful for everyone. Viktor Frankl calls this "man's search for meaning". Domination cultures, jackal cultures, really work on this, by tricking people into mis-recognizing this as a need for money, status, approval. To make us slaves of culture, we have been educated to get these other things as [the spoils of] the good life. That takes a powerful [educational system] to make us so stupid. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg, "Mis-recognition of Needs", from the CD, "Creating a Life Serving System Within Oneself".

Don’t get addicted to your requests. Your objective is needs, not requests. Because then it becomes a demand. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg, 2-day advanced intensive

Empathize with silence by listening for the feelings and needs behind it. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

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

Empathizing with someone's "no" protects us from taking it personally. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

Empathy allows us to re-perceive our world in a new way and move on. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

Empathy before education. -- Marshall Rosenberg

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.

In NVC, no matter what words others may use to express themselves, we simply listen for their observations, feelings, needs, and requests. Then we may wish to reflect back, paraphrasing what we have understood. We stay with empathy, allowing others the opportunity to fully express themselves before we turn our attention to solutions or requests for relief. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg Source / summary of chapter 7 'Receiving Empathically, 'a Language of Life', 2nd edition.

Empathy lies in our ability to be present. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

Empathy: Emptying our mind and listening with our whole being -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

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 Rosenberg, Intimate Relationships, track 23

Focusing on the unmet need (not the judgment) is more likely to get the need met. -- Marshall Rosenberg

For many parents, the way I'm talking about communicating is so different that they say, "Well, it just doesn't seem natural to communicate that way." At just the right time, I read something that Gandhi had written in which he said, "Don't mix up that which is habitual with that which is natural." Gandhi said that very often we've been trained to communicate and act in ways that are quite unnatural, but they are habitual in the sense that we have been trained for various reasons to do it that way in our culture. And that certainly rang true to me in the way that I was trained to communicate with children. The way I was trained to communicate by judging rightness and wrongness, goodness and badness, and the use of punishment was widely used and very easily became habitual for me as a parent. But I wouldn't say that because something is habitual that it is natural. -- Marshall Rosenberg, Source

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, NVC - a Language of Life C 1

I never have to worry about another person's response, only how I react to what they say. -- Marshall Rosenberg

I show prisoners who want to punish others for what they do that vengeance is a distorted cry for empathy. That when we think we want to hurt others, what we really need is for these other people to see how we have been hurt and to see how their behavior has contributed to our pain. [..] Making the other people suffer is the best they can think of to do to find relief from their own pain. -- Marshall Rosenberg, p 17 'Killing People is too Superficial' from 'The Surprising Purpose of Anger'.

I try never to hear what another person thinks of me. I enjoy life a lot more when I spend as little time as possible hearing or thinking about what other people think about me. I go to the needs behind the thoughts. Then I’m in a different world. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg, 2-day advanced intensive

I'm going to show you a technology today which takes insults and criticisms out of the airwaves. (Marshall puts on giraffe ears) With this technology, it will be impossible for you to hear criticisms, harsh remarks, or insults. All you can hear is what all people are ever saying, "please" and "thank you". What used to sound like criticism, judgment, or blame, you will see, are really tragic, suicidal expressions of "please". -- Marshall Rosenberg, The Basics of Nonviolent Communication, DVD-1.

If we don't tell people about our needs, it is much less likely they will be met. -- Marshall Rosenberg

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 Rosenberg, The Basics of Nonviolent Communication, DVD-2

If you have an image of someone cutting off a relationship, it’s the cutting off that will lead to your suffering. If you see the action as their need being expressed, then the message is within them, not you. Any interpretation you put onto another person’s message (such as passive-aggressive, withholding, etc.), you will pay for because of how you took it. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg, 2-day advanced intensive

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

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. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg, 2-day advanced intensive

In NVC, no matter what words others may use to express themselves, we simply listen for their observations, feelings, needs, and requests. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg Source

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 Rosenberg, The Basics of Nonviolent Communication, DVD-1

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. -- Marshall Rosenberg, The Basics of Nonviolent Communication, DVD-1

It may be difficult to empathize with those who are closest to us. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

It's harder to empathize with those who appear to possess more power, status, or resources. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

It's never what people do that make us angry, it's what we tell ourselves about what they did. -- Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D.

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, 2-day advanced intensive

NO is always a YES to something else. -- Marshall Rosenberg

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, 2-day advanced intensive

NVC Mourning: connecting with the feelings and unmet needs stimulated by past actions which we now regret. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

[NVC is] language, thoughts, communication skills and means of influence that serve my desire to do three things: 1) to liberate myself from cultural learning that is in conflict with how I want to live my life. 2) to empower myself to connect with myself and others in a way that makes compassionate giving natural. 3) to empower myself to create structures that support compassionate giving. -- Marshall Rosenberg, Lausanne Switzerland, September 2003

NVC is a reminder; to focus our attention where we are most likely to get our needs met. -- Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D.

NVC self-forgiveness: connecting with the need we were trying to meet when we took the action which we now regret. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

Natural Giving: Anything we do in life which is not out of that energy, we pay for and everybody else pays for. Anything we do to avoid punishment, everybody pays for. Everything we do for a reward, everybody pays for. Everything we do to make people like us, everybody pays for. Everything we do out of guilt, shame, duty, or obligation, everybody pays for. -- Marshall Rosenberg, The Basics of Nonviolent Communication, DVD-1.

Needs are the expression of life through us. -- Marshall Rosenberg

Needs are never conflicting. When we say that, we are only saying that at the moment we aren’t seeing how both needs can be met. That leaves an opening. When you think in the way I’m suggesting, you’ll often find a way to get most needs met simultaneously. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg, 2-day advanced intensive

Never hear what a jackal-speaking person thinks, especially what they think about you. -- Marshall Rosenberg, The Basics of Nonviolent Communications, DVD-1

Never put your "but" in the face of an angry person. -- Marshall Rosenberg, The Basics of Nonviolent Communication, DVD-2

Not getting our needs fulfilled is painful — but it’s a sweet pain, not suffering, which is what comes from life-alienated thinking and interpretation. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg, 2-day advanced intensive

People don't make us angry, how we think makes us angry. -- Marshall Rosenberg

Punishment damages goodwill and self-esteem, and shifts our attention from the intrinsic value of an action to external consequences. -- Marshall Rosenberg

Remember that whatever anyone does, it is an effort to meet a need. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg, 2-day advanced intensive

Self-judgments, like all judgments, are tragic expressions of unmet needs. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

Staying with empathy we allow speakers to touch deeper levels of themselves. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

The Nonviolent Communication process focuses on what's alive in us and what would make life more wonderful. What's alive in us are our needs, and I'm talking about the universal needs, the ones all living creatures have. Our feelings are simply a manifestation of what is happening with our needs. If our needs are being fulfilled, we feel pleasure. If our needs are not being fulfilled, we feel pain. Now, this does not exclude the analytic. I simply differentiate between life-serving analysis and life-alienated analysis... Analysis is a problem only when it gets disconnected from serving life. -- Marshall Rosenberg

The more we empathize, the safer we feel -- Marshall Rosenberg

The most important use of NVC may be in developing self-compassion. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

The objective of Giraffe is never to get what we want. It’s the development of a quality of connection that allows everyone’s needs to get met. -- Marshall Rosenberg, 2 day course transcript

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, 2-day advanced intensive

They have most likely said it because they have an unmet need. -- Marshall Rosenberg

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 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication

Understanding and connection can transcend conflict. -- Marshall Rosenberg

Violence is a tragic expression of unmet needs. -- Marshall Rosenberg

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

We give empathy to others for our own benefit. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg, 2-day advanced intensive

We know the speaker has received adequate empathy when a. we sense a release of tension, or b. the flow of words comes to a halt. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

We need empathy to give empathy. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

We never really know what we want until after we get it. If after we get it, it makes life more miserable, we know that isn't what we wanted. If it makes our life wonderful, we know this is a strategy which will meet out need. That's why Paul Tillich, the theologian says we need to sin courageously. You ask for what you want, hoping to meet your needs. If you get it and it makes life worse, you learn that this isn't what I want. -- Marshall Rosenberg, The Basics of Nonviolent Communication, DVD-1.

We use NVC to evaluate ourselves in ways that engender growth rather than self-hatred. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

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

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, "Couples Longest Running Conflict Story", from the CD, "Creating a Life Serving System Within Oneself".

We have been educated, for a long time, to fit within domination structures: to do what authority says. When you want people to be nice, dead people and do what authority says, the last thing you want them to be conscious of is the life within them. You cannot make a good slave out of somebody who is fully alive. The last thing you want to teach people, if you want a domination structure, is for them to be in touch with their needs. You ought to teach them that the highest value is not a need to express their needs. "Needs" means you are needy, selfish, dependent, egotistical. Loving women have no needs; they suppress their needs, for their family. Brave men have no needs; they are willing to lose their lives for the king. That is why we do not know what our needs are. I went to schools for twenty-one years. Not only was I never asked what I was feeling; I certainly was never asked what my needs were! -- Marshall B. Rosenberg, Source: http://www.goodradioshows.org/peaceTalksL36.html


What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart. -- Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication

When I am angry I have a judgment and an unmet need. -- Marshall Rosenberg

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, 2-day advanced intensive

When we hear the other person's feeling and needs, we recognize our common humanity. -- Marshall Rosenberg

When we listen for their feelings and needs, we no longer see people as monsters. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

When we sense ourselves being defensive or unable to empathize, we need to (a) stop, breathe, give ourselves empathy, (b) scream nonviolently, or (c) take time out. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg Source

When we understand the needs that motivate our own and other's behavior, we have no enemies. -- Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D.

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 Rosenberg, The Basics of Nonviolent Communication, DVD-1.

When you need empathy, you cannot give empathy. -- Marshall Rosenberg

Whenever you make a request of someone, hand them a little card which says this on it: "Please do as I requested, only if you can do so with the joy of a little child feeding a hungry duck. Please do not do as I request if there is any taint of fear of punishment if you don't. Please do not do as I request to buy my love, that, is hoping that I will love you more if you do. Please do not do as I request if you will feel guilty if you don't. Please do not do as I request if you will feel shameful. And certainly do not do as I request out of any sense of duty or obligation." -- Marshall Rosenberg

With every choice you make, be conscious of what need it serves. -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

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

There are always four sides to a story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau

You're going to lose it when you follow the world "feel" with the words "because I think". Any time you are thinking, your chance of getting what you need is greatly decreased, especially when you follow the word "think" with the word "you". I predict you won't only not get heard, but I predict a defensive aggressive reaction. -- Marshall Rosenberg, The Basics of Nonviolent Communication, DVD-1.

Educators committed to engaging in the long-term, often difficult work of strengthening their relationships with colleagues, students and parents and expanding their opportunities for personal growth will find Nonviolent Communication to be an invaluable tool. -- Ron Rubin, safe schools consultant, Vermont Department of Education

[W]e have to live over into the other; we have to dissolve with our soul into the other. -- Rudolf Steiner 11/10/1919

Come out of the circle of time, and into the circle of love. -- Rumi

O, Great Spirit, open my eyes, open heart's wings, open my ears to your voice in all things. -- Rumi

Out Beyond Ideas of Right Doing and Wrong Doing, There is a Field. I'll Meet you There -- Rumi

As a school counselor, I implemented a 2 year anti-bullying program at the international school where I currently work. I used Marshall's work and wisdom throughout the program and am happy to report that we reduced bullying by 26% -- Nicki Ruud, Ed.D., school counselor, International School of Helsinki, (as reported on a student questionnaire designed by Dr. Dan Olweus).

All adults should learn how to use the skills expressed in Dr. Rosenberg's book, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. The outcome would be that children would be accustomed to the language of positive, nonviolent forms of communication that will aid them throughout their lives. Dr. Rosenberg, you are a peacemaker!? -- Nancy Sager, principal, Sante Fe Montessori School

I want to appreciate you without judging. Join you without invading. Invite you without demanding. Leave you without guilt. -- Virgina Satir

You can't walk a mile in someone else's shoes until you take off your own shoes. - Native American Saying

As a family physician, I have used NVC in my daily work with patients for almost 10 years. We have much more of a cooperative relationship than before, and NVC has helped me and my patients save time and unnecessary investigations and visits. As a leader of a health care center for about 18 years, NVC has helped me create a climate of trust, understanding and joy for my staff. -- Ola Schenstrom, MD, chief physician and family physician; Lulea, Sweden

When we teach people to think in terms of enemy images, the bombs are not very far. -- Andrew Schumaker

Violence begins with language. If we can change our communication, we can change our consciousness. Then we can dance with others and create beauty and harmony instead of war and destruction. -- Mel Sears, California

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself. All things are bound together. All things interconnect. -- Chief Seattle

Perhaps I've benefited the most from this tools in how I've applied it to my own self-talk ? my inner dialog. It's helped me to translate judgments and self-criticisms, so that I could see what was the life-connected impulse they were coming from. Then it was easy and joyful to change without any 'shoulds. I can't say enough good things about my experience with this tool. -- Alan Seid, Vipassana, Bellingham WA

Education is not simply about teachers covering a curriculum; it is a dance of relationships among the people of the class. The Compassionate Classroom is a how-to guide that presents a wide range of powerful communication and relationship tools that will help each child discover and reach their potential. -- Tim Seldin, president, The Montessori Foundation

When there is a lot of hurt associated with a long-unmet need, the person receiving the request can feel a heavy burden, sensing an almost insatiable demand for energy. Caregivers often need empathy around this, as it can produce a response of fear and self-protection. And people in desperate pain, to the best of their ability, should become aware of this, and not become attached to the strategy of a particular person to meet these needs. When everything is in balance, and all intentions are in check, a magnificent gift of healing flows in both directions. -- Lynn Senick, (w/development by BH)

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. -- William Shakespeare, spoken by Hamlet

The only sensible person is my tailor. He measures me anew each time he sees me. -- George Bernard Shaw

Nonviolent Communication is a masterwork. Nationally, we talk peace. This book goes far beyond mere talk . . . it shows us how to TEACH peace. -- JAMES E. SHAW, PhD, author of Jack and Jill, Why They Kill

Nonviolent Communication is a practical and necessary work that should be required reading by every state department of education in the nation, and adopted for immediate and continuous use in our school districts. Nationally, we talk peace. This book goes far beyond mere talk - it shows us how to TEACH peace. -- James E. Shaw, Ph.D., author, Jack and Jill, Why They Kill

Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be. -- Shel Silverstein

Marshall Rosenberg, who teaches non-violent communication, was struck in reading psychological interviews with Nazi war criminals not by their abnormality, but that they used a language denying choice: "should," "one must," "have to." For example, Adolph Eichmann was asked, "Was it difficult for you to send these tens of thousands of people their death?" Eichmann replied, "To tell you the truth, it was easy. Our language made it easy." Asked to explain, Eichmann said, "My fellow officers and I coined our own name for our language. We called it amtssprache -- 'office talk.'" In office talk "you deny responsibility for your actions. So if anybody says, 'Why did you do it?' you say, 'I had to.' 'Why did you have to?' 'Superiors' orders. Company policy. It's the law.'" -- Sam Smith, Minutes of the Wannsee Conference, from the book "Why Bother", on the normalization of violence

I know nothing, except that I know nothing. -- Socrates

NVC is using precision in language to gain a deeper connection with myself. -- Leo Sofer Source

If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? -- Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn

An emotion, which is a passion, ceases to be a passion, as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea thereof. -- Baruch Spinoza

As for the terms good and bad, they indicate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves, but are merely modes of thinking, or notions which we form from the comparison of things with one another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf. -- Baruch Spinoza

Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand. -- Baruch Spinoza

I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate, but to understand human actions; and to this end I have looked upon passions, such as love, hatred, anger, envy, ambition, pity, and the other perturbations of the mind, not in the light of vices of human nature, but as properties, just as pertinent to it, as are heat, cold, storm, thunder, and the like to the nature of the atmosphere, which phenomena, though inconvenient, are yet necessary, and have fixed causes, by means of which we endeavour to understand their nature, and the mind has just as much pleasure in viewing them aright, as in knowing such things as flatter the senses -- Baruch Spinoza

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them -- Baruch Spinoza

In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another. For no one by the law of nature is bound to please another, unless he chooses, nor to hold anything to be good or evil, but what he himself, according to his own temperament, pronounces to be so; and, to speak generally, nothing is forbidden by the law of nature, except what is beyond everyone's power. -- Baruch Spinoza

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused. -- Baruch Spinoza

The mind has greater power over the emotions and is less subject thereto, in so far as it understands all things as necessary. -- Baruch Spinoza

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope. -- Baruch Spinoza

Sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, where it is decreed by common consent what is good or bad -- Baruch Spinoza

We strive to further the occurrence of whatever we imagine will lead to Joy, and to avert or destroy what we imagine is contrary to it, or will lead to Sadness. -- Baruch Spinoza

Changing the way the world works sounds daunting, but Nonviolent Communication helps liberate us from ancient patterns of violence. FRANCIS LEFKOWITZ, Body & Soul

I have never read a clearer, more straightforward, insightful book on communication. After studying and teaching assertiveness since the '70s, this book is a breath of fresh air. Nonviolent Communication adds brilliant insight into the linkage of feelings and needs and taking responsibility and creates a true tool. Amazingly easy to read, great examples, and challenging to put into practice - this book is a true gift to all of us. -- A reader in Washington state

...Adult listening behaviors become habitual. Our listening behaviors have been acquired and reinforced over a long period of time. As adults we rarely think about how we listen or consider that it takes time to change old habits. We listen the way we do because we have learned to listen that way. -- Lyman K. Steil, Larry L. Barker, & Kittie W. Watson, Effective Listening Key To Your Success

Every human being shall see in each and all of his fellow-men a hidden divinity... that every human being is made in the likeness of the Godhead. When that time comes there will be no need for any religious coercion; for then every meeting between one man and another will of itself be in the nature of a religious rite, a sacrament. -- Rudolf Steiner

[I]n the future no human being is to find peace in the enjoyment of happiness if others beside him are unhappy. -- Rudolf Steiner

NVC consulting has helped the members of our organization to connect and communicate effectively. -- Nate Stewart, MD, orthopedic surgeon

With the growth in today's dysfunctional families and the increase of violence in our schools, Nonviolent Communication is a godsend. -- Linda C. Stoehr, reporter, Los Colinas Business News

Listening is a rare happening among human beings. You cannot listen to the word another is speaking if you are preoccupied with your appearance, or with impressing the other, or are trying to decide what you are going to say when the other stops talking, or are debating about whether what is being said is true or relevant or agreeable. Such matters have their place, but only after listening to the word as the word is being uttered. Listening is a primitive act of love in which a person gives himself to another's word, making himself accessible and vulnerable to that word. -- William Stringfellow, Friend's Journal

Parenting from Your Heart abundantly presents valuable principles applicable to many family situations. It is perfect for the busy parent searching for a quick read of practical and productive parenting ideas. -- Win and Bill Sweet, authors, Living Joyfully with Children

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed. -- Jonathan Swift

As a 62 year old businessman who had a near death experience during a cardiac arrest puts it - "One thing I learned was that we are all part of one big, living universe. If we think we can hurt another person or another living thing without hurting ourselves we are sadly mistaken. I look at a forest or a flower or a bird now, and say 'That is me, part of me'. We are connected with all things and if we send love along those connections, then we are happy. -- Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe

Listen! All I ask is that you listen. Don't talk or do - just hear me. Advice is cheap; 20 cents will get you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper. And I can do for myself; I am not helpless. Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless. When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and inadequacy. But when you accept as a simple fact that I feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I can stop trying to convince you and get about this business of understanding what's behind this irrational feeling. And when that's clear, the answers are obvious and I don't need advice. Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what's behind them. Perhaps that's why prayer works, sometimes, for some people - because God is mute, and he doesn't give advice or try to fix things. God just listens and lets you work it out for yourself. So please listen, and just hear me. And if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn - and I will listen to you. -- Alan Taplow (adapted), from PLEASE LISTEN! by Dr. Ray Houghton, as published in The Promise of Green, edited by Deborah Roth. Source

A revolutionary way of looking at language. If enough people actually make use of the material in Nonviolent Communication we may soon live in a more peaceful and compassionate world. -- Wes Taylor, Progressive Health

This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to end the unfulfilling cycles of argument in their relationships. Marshall Rosenberg offers a radical challenge to centuries of thought and language that create violence. If enough people actually learn Nonviolent Communication we may soon live in a more peaceful and compassionate world. -- WES TAYLOR, Progressive Health

Love cannot remain by itself - it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action and that action is service. -- Mother Teresa

What you think of me is none of my business! -- Terry Cole-Whittaker, 1982 (book by same name)

Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand. -- Sue Patton Thoele

NVC provides the skills to connect on a heart level with every individual while practicing mindfulness and the Eightfold Path. Both the books and the NVC workshops will cultivate a heart of compassion. -- Rusty Thomas, Vipassana (Insight) Meditation, Minimal Security Unit, Monroe Correctional Complex, Monroe, WA

The first duty of love is to listen. -- Paul Tillich

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we really listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other. We are constantly being re-created. -- Brenda Ueland

People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. -- Unknown

We are one, after all, you and I. Together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other. -- unknown, Source: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving me advice, you have not done what I asked. When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn't feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings. When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem, you have failed me, strange as that may seem. -- Unknown, "Listen" (sometimes as "Listen to me")

During the 1950s the American psychologist Carl Rogers noticed the presence of a new faculty in the younger generation for which he used a word originally coined in 1912: empathy. In fact, what he was describing is a process which has become part of the experience of an ever-increasing number of those born after the end of the Second World War. Empathy arises out of sympathy, love, interest in and compassion for our fellow human being; it enables us to extend our own inner being into that of the other person and directly experience something of his essential nature. -- Baruch Luke Urieli, Learning to Experience the Etheric World

Nonviolent Communication is a simple yet powerful methodology for communicating in a way that meets both parties needs. This is one of the most useful books you will ever read. -- William Ury, co-author, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In

Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something. -- Morihei Ueshiba, the Art of Peace

Seeing me before him, / The adversary attacks, / But by that time / I am already standing / Safely behind him. -- Morihei Ueshiba, the Art of Peace

The Way of a Warrior is to establish harmony. -- Morihei Ueshiba, the Art of Peace

The Art of Peace is the principle of nonresistance. Because it is nonresistant, it is victorious from the beginning. ... The Art of Peace is invincible because it contends with nothing. -- Morihei Ueshiba, the Art of Peace

The human heart feels things the eyes cannot see, and knows what the mind cannot understand. -- Robert Vallett

Compassionate Communication changes our consciousness so that the habits of the past are replaced by the passion of the present. -- Pan Vera, Trainer, Mediator and relationship coach.

Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg is a great book teaching a compassionate way to talk to people even if you (or they) are angry. -- Joe Vitale, author, Spiritual Marketing, The Power of Outrageous Marketing

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -- Voltaire

It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce. -- Voltaire

Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him. -- Voltaire

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. -- Voltaire

Prejudices are what fools use for reason. -- Voltaire

Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels. -- Voltaire

Marshall's book profoundly questions present-day thinking on education and educational structures. The principles in this book can generate more harmony in our classrooms, homes and societies. All educators and parents should have Life-Enriching Education. -- Dr. Jeannette Vos, coauthor, The Learning Revolution

In my estimation, NVC is as radical and change-making as the Eight-Fold Path. I predict that active use of NVC in our sanghas would significantly cut through frustrations and growing pains. -- Joan Starr Ward, member, Spirit Rock Center, CA and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship

If you have come here to help me then you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine then let us work together. -- Lila Watson (aboriginal activist)

Usually a person relates to another under the tacit assumption that the other shares his view of reality, that indeed there is only one reality.... -- Paul Watzlawick, Psychologist

There is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about. -- Oscar Wilde

As far as nonviolence and Spiritual Activism, Marshall Rosenberg is it! Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, is essential reading for anyone who wants to improve their communication skills. Applying the concepts within the book will help guide the reader towards a more loving, compassionate, and nonviolent way of understanding and functioning with others, and foster more compassion in the world. I highly recommend this book. -- MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, author of Everyday Grace, President Global Renaissance Alliance

As we grow older and realize more clearly the limitations of human happiness, we come to see that the only real and abiding pleasure in life is to give pleasure to other people. -- P G Wodehouse

I always advise people never to give advice. -- P G Wodehouse

Also see

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