The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.
—Carl Rogers
Topics: Life and Living
The more I am willing to be myself in all this complexity of life and the more I am willing to understand and accept the realities in myself and in the other person, the more change seems to have been stirred up. It is a very paradoxical thing – that to the degree that each one of us is willing to be himself, then he finds not only himself changing; but he finds that other people to whom he relates are also changing.
—Carl Rogers
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
—Carl Rogers
Topics: Change
If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning.
—Carl Rogers
Topics: Independence
The facts are always friendly, every bit of evidence one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true.
—Carl Rogers
Topics: Facts
Man’s inability to communicate is a result of his failure to listen effectively.
—Carl Rogers
Topics: Listening
One of the most satisfying experiences I know is fully to appreciate an individual in the same way I appreciate a sunset. When I look at a sunset…I don’t find myself saying, ‘Soften the orange a litle more on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud color…’ I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch it with awe as it unfolds.
—Carl Rogers
People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying, “Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner.” I don’t try to control a sunset, I just watch with awe as it unfolds.
—Carl Rogers
The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn … and change.
—Carl Rogers
The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it.
—Carl Rogers
Topics: Creativity
When the other person is hurting, confused, troubled, anxious, alienated, terrified, or when he or she is doubtful of self-worth, uncertain as to identity, then understanding is called for. The gentle and sensitive companionship of an empathic stance provides illumination and healing. In such situations deep understanding is, I believe, the most precious gift one can give to another.
—Carl Rogers
In a person who is open to experience each stimulus is freely relayed through the nervous system, without being distorted by any process of defensiveness.
—Carl Rogers
Topics: Experience
The only kind of learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovered or self-appropriated learning – truth that has been assimilated in experience.
—Carl Rogers
Topics: Learning
When I have been listened to and when I have been heard, I am able to re-perceive my world in a new way and to go on. It is astonishing how elements that seem insoluble become soluble when someone listens, how confusions that seem irremediable turn into relatively clear flowing streams when one is heard. I have deeply appreciated the times that I have experienced this sensitive, empathic, concentrated listening.
—Carl Rogers
Topics: Listening
I believe that the testing of the student’s achievements in order to see if he meets some criterion held by the teacher, is directly contrary to the implications of therapy for significant learning.
—Carl Rogers
Topics: Teaching
A person’s real need, a most terrible need, is for someone to listen…not as a ‘patient’ but as a human soul. To listen well is to respond to a great human yearning.
—Carl Rogers
I hear the words, the thoughts, the feeling tones, the personal meaning, even the meaning that is below the conscious intent of the speaker. Sometimes too, in a message which superficially is not very important, I hear a deep human cry that lies buried and unknown far below the surface of the person. So I have learned to ask myself, can I hear the sounds and sense the shape of this other person’s inner world? Can I resonate to what he is saying so deeply that I sense the meanings he is afraid of, yet would like to communicate, as well as those he knows?
—Carl Rogers
Topics: Communication, Pride
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Abraham Maslow American Psychologist
- B. F. Skinner American Psychologist
- Howard Gardner American Psychologist
- Timothy Leary American Psychologist
- Bruno Bettelheim Austrian-born Psychoanalyst
- Erich Fromm German Social Philosopher
- George W. Crane American Psychologist
- Orval Hobart Mowrer American Psychologist
- Martin Seligman American Psychologist
- Carl Gustav Jung Swiss Psychologist
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