Top 250 Marshall B. Rosenberg Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Your presence is the most precious gift you can give to another human being.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

2. “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.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

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

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

4. “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.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

5. “To practice the process of conflict resolution, we must completely abandon the goal of getting people to do what we want.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

6. “You don’t have to be brilliant. It’s enough to become progressively less stupid.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

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

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

8. “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.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

9. “People don’t make us angry, how we think makes us angry.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

10. “All human actions are an attempt to meet needs.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

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

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

12. “As we learn to speak from the heart we are changing the habits of a lifetime.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

13. “NVC requires us to be continually conscious of the beauty within ourselves and other people.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

14. “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 B. Rosenberg

15. “When we focus on clarifying what is being observed, felt, and needed rather than on diagnosing and judging, we discover the depth of our own compassion.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

16. “Use anger as a wake-up call to unmet needs.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

17. “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

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

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

19. “Getting in touch with unmet needs is important to the healing process.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

20. “At the core of all anger is a need that is not being fulfilled.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

21. “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.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

22. “While we may not consider the way we talk to be ‘violent,’ our words often lead to hurt and pain, whether for others or for ourselves.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

23. “A difficult message to hear is an opportunity to enrich someone’s life.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

24. “Never question the beauty of what you are saying because someone reacts with pain, judgment, criticism. It just means they have not heard you.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

25. “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 B. Rosenberg

26. “Intellectual understanding blocks empathy.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

27. “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.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

28. “Empathy before education.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

29. “The cause of anger lies in our thinking – in thoughts of blame and judgment.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

30. “If we don’t tell people about our needs, it is much less likely they will be met.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

31. “The Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti once remarked that observing without evaluating is the highest form of human intelligence. When I first read this statement, the thought, ‘What nonsense!’ shot through my mind before I realized that I had just made an evaluation.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

32. “If we wish to express anger fully, the first step is to divorce the other person from any responsibility for our anger.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

33. “Use the words “I feel because I” to remind us that what we feel it isn’t because of what the other person did, but because of a choice I’ve made.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

34. “We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

35. “Everything we do is in service of our needs. When this one concept is applied to our view of others, we’ll see that we have no real enemies, that what others do to us is the best possible thing they know to do to get their needs met.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

36. “Anger, depression, guilt, and shame are the product of the thinking that is at the base of violence on our planet.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

37. “Punishment is the root of violence on our planet.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

38. “Never do anything that isn’t play.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

39. “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 B. Rosenberg

40. “There are the two main reasons we don’t get our needs met. First, we don’t know how to express our needs to begin with and second if we do, we forget to put a clear request after it, or we use vague words like appreciate, listen, recognize, know, be real, and stuff like that.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

41. “Self-empathy in NVC means checking in with your own feelings and needs.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

42. “An important aspect of self-compassion is to be able to empathically hold both parts of ourselves-the self that regrets a past action and the self that took the action in the first place.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

43. “When we listen for feelings and needs – we can see that people who seem like monsters are simply human beings whose language and behavior sometimes keep us from seeing their humanness.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

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

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

45. “To be able to hear our own feelings and needs and to empathize with them can free us from depression.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

46. “Time and again, people transcend the paralyzing effects of psychological pain when they have sufficient contact with someone who can hear them empathically.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

47. “The most important use of NVC may be in developing self-compassion.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

48. “At the root of every tantrum and power struggle are unmet needs.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

49. “Classifying and judging people promotes violence.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

50. “NVC enhances inner communication by helping us translate negative internal messages into feelings and needs. Our ability to distinguish our own feelings and needs and to empathize with them can free us from depression.”

— Marshall B. Rosenberg