Carl Rogers Quotes & Sayings

Over the years, however, the research evidence keeps piling up, and it points strongly to the conclusion that a high degree of empathy in a relationship is possibly the most potent and certainly one of the most potent factors in bringing about change and learning. — Carl Rogers

If the time comes when our culture tires of the endless homicidal feuds, despairs of the use of force and war as a means of bringing peace, becomes discontent with the half-lives that its members are living - only then will our culture seriously look for alternatives. — Carl Rogers

Powerful is our need to be known, really known by ourselves and others, even if only for a moment. — Carl Rogers

I prize the privilege of being alone. — Carl Rogers

I think my deepest criticism of the educational system ... is that it's all based upon a distrust of the student. Don't trust him to follow his own leads; guide him; tell him what to do; tell him what he should think; tell him what he should learn. Consequently at the very age when he should be developing adult characteristics of choice and decision making, when he should be trusted on some of those things, trusted to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes, he is, instead, regimented and shoved into a curriculum, whether it fits him or not. — Carl Rogers

The action of the child inventing a new game with his playmates; Einstein formulating a theory of relativity; the housewife devising a new sauce for the meat, a young author writing his first novel; all of these are in terms of definition, Creative, and there is no attempt to set them in some order of more or less Creative. — Carl Rogers

Most of us consist of two separated parts, trying desperately to bring themselves together into an integrated soma, where the distinctions between mind and body, feelings and intellect, would be obliterated. — Carl Rogers

The only reality I can possibly know is the world as I perceive it at this moment. The only reality you can possibly know is the world as you see it at this moment. And the only certainty is that those perceived realities are different. There are as many "real worlds" as there are people! — Carl Rogers

Adults who think that children must be manipulated for their own good have developed the attitude of a controlling parent who lacks faith in himself, the child, or humanity or himself. — Carl Rogers

Don't be a damned ammunition wagon. Be a rifle! — Carl Rogers

Life, at its best, is a flowing, changing process in which nothing is fixed. — Carl Rogers

Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The touchstone of validity is my own experience. No other person's ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming me. — Carl Rogers

I have come to recognize that being trustworthy does not demand that I be rigidly consistent but that I be dependably real ... Can I be expressive enough as a person that what I am will be communicated unambiguously? — Carl Rogers

It is that the individual has within him or herself vast resources for self-understanding, for altering the self-concept basic attitudes, and his or her self-directed behavior - and that these resources can be tapped if only a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided — Carl Rogers

When I look at the world I'm pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic. — Carl Rogers

Openness to all attitudes no matter how extreme or unrealistic they may seem. — Carl Rogers

His experiencing is process in nature, feeling the new in each situation and interpreting it anew, interpreting it in terms of the past only to the extent that the now is identical with the past. — Carl Rogers

With the price of life these days, you've got to get everything for free you can. — Carl Rogers

The organism has one basic tendency and striving - to actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing organism — Carl Rogers

Empathy is a special way of coming to know another and ourself, a kind of attuning and understanding. When empathy is extended, it satisfies our needs and wish for intimacy, it rescues us from our feelings of aloneness. — Carl Rogers

What you are to be, you are now becoming. — Carl Rogers

It's an awful risky thing to live — Carl Rogers

No other person's ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. — Carl Rogers

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

Neurotic behavior is quite predictable. Healthy behavior is unpredictable. — Carl Rogers

People only seriously consider change when they feel accepted for exactly who they are. — Carl Rogers

The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it. — Carl Rogers

Experience is the highest authority. — 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

The genuinely significant creation, whether an idea, or a work of art, or a scientific discovery, is most likely to be seen at first as erroneous, bad, or foolish. Later it may be seen as obvious, something self-evident to all. Only still later does it receive its final evaluation as a creative contribution. It seems clear no contemporary mortal can satisfactorily evaluate a creative product at the time it is formed, and this statement is increasingly true the greater the novelty of the creation. — Carl Rogers

There is in every organism, at whatever level, an underlying flow of movement toward constructive fulfillment of its inherent possibilities. — Carl Rogers

Don't be the ammunition wagon, be the rifle knowledge exists primarily for use. — Carl Rogers

It is astonishing how elements that seem insoluble become soluble when someone listens. — Carl Rogers

A second characteristic of the process which for me is the good life, is that it involves an increasingly tendency to live fully in each moment. I believe it would be evident that for the person who was fully open to his new experience, completely without defensiveness, each moment would be new. — Carl Rogers

Loneliness is a barrier that prevents one from uniting with the inner self. — Carl Rogers

Man's inability to communicate is a result of his failure to listen effectively. — Carl Rogers

The most valuable information on how to maintain or save relationships comes from scientific observation of couples in action, right down to the microexpressions and apparently inane comments seen in everyday conversations. — Carl Rogers

Unless man can make new and original adaptations to his environment as rapidly as his science can change the environment, our culture will perish. — Carl Rogers

The basic idea behind teaching is to teach people what they need to know. — Carl Rogers

An empathic way of being can be learned from empathic persons. Perhaps the most important statement of all is that the ability to be accurately empathic is something which can be developed by training. Therapists, parents and teachers can be helped to become empathic. This is especially likely to occur if their teachers and supervisors are themselves individuals of sensitive understanding. It is most encouraging to know that this subtle, elusive quality, of utmost importance in therapy, is not something one is "born with", but can be learned, and learned most rapidly in an empathic climate. — Carl Rogers

It is a direction not a destination. — Carl Rogers

The purpose of adult education is to help them to learn, not to teach them all you know and thus stop them from learning. — Carl Rogers

Both the young and the old are almost completely useless in our modern society, and are made keenly aware of that uselessness. They have no place. They are private, isolated - and hopeless. — Carl Rogers

Learning of all kinds goes on best, lasts best, and tends to lead itself on more when it grows out of a real focus of interest in the learner. — Carl Rogers

Each person is an island unto himself, in a very real sense; and he can only build bridges to other islands if he is first of all willing to be himself and permitted to be himself. — Carl Rogers

Real communication occurs ... when we listen with understanding. What does this mean? It means to see the expressed idea and attitude from the other person's point of view, to sense how it feels to him, to achieve his frame of reference in regard to the thing he is talking about. — Carl Rogers

We in the West seem to have made a fetish out of complete individual self-sufficiency, of not needing help, of being completely private except in a very few selected relationships. — Carl Rogers

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 little 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

Although the client-centered approach had its origin purely within the limits of the psychological clinic, it is proving to have implications, often of a startling nature, for very diverse fields of effort. — Carl Rogers

I have come to realize that being trustworthy does not demand that I be rigidly consistent but that I be dependably real. — Carl Rogers

I was forced to stretch my thinking, to realize that sincere and honest people could believe in very divergent religious doctrines. — Carl Rogers

One of the most revolutionary concepts to grow out of our clinical experience is the growing recognition that innermost core of man's nature - the deepest layers of his personality, the base of his 'animal nature' - is basically socialized, forward-moving, rational and realistic ... He is realistically able to control himself, and he is incorrigibly socialized in his desires. There is no beast in man, there is only man in man. — Carl Rogers

The education situation which most effectively promotes significant learning is one in which (1) threat to the self of the learner is reduced to a minimum and (2) differential perception of the field of experience is facilitated — Carl Rogers

We can choose to use our growing knowledge to enslave people in ways never dreamed of before, depersonalizing them, controlling them by means so carefully selected that they will perhaps never be aware of their loss of personhood. — Carl Rogers

To perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person, but without ever losing the "as if" condition. Thus, it means to sense the hurt or the pleasure of another as he senses it and to perceive the causes thereof as he perceives them, but without ever losing the recognition that it is as if I were hurt or pleased and so forth. — Carl Rogers

I realize that if I were stable, prudent and static; I'd live in death. Therefore I accept confusion, uncertainty, fear and emotional ups and downs; because that's the price I'm willing to pay for a fluid, perplexed and exciting life. — Carl Rogers

So, as you can readily see from what I have said thus far, a creative, active, sensitive, accurate, empathic, nonjudgmental listening is for me terribly important in a relationship. It is important for me to provide it; it has been extremely important, especially at certain times in my life, to receive it. I feel that I have grown within myself when I have provided it; I am very sure that I have grown and been released and enhanced when I have received this kind of listening. — Carl Rogers

The state of empathy, or being empathic, is to perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person. — Carl Rogers

A person cannot teach another person directly; a person can only facilitate another's learning — Carl Rogers

If I were to search for the central core of difficulty in people as I have come to know them, it is that in the great majority of cases they despise themselves, regarding themselves as worthless and unlovable. — Carl Rogers

There is another peculiar satisfaction in really hearing someone: It is like listening to the music of the spheres, because beyond the immediate message of the person, no matter what that might be, there is the universal. Hidden in all of the personal communications which I really hear there seem to be orderly psychological laws, aspects of the same order we find in the universe as a whole. So there is both the satisfaction of hearing this person and also the satisfaction of feeling one's self in touch with what is universally true. — Carl Rogers

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

When someone really hears you without passing judgment on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good ... 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 which seem insoluble become soluble when someone listens. How confusions which seem irremediable turn into relatively clear flowing streams when one is heard. — Carl Rogers

The elements in a relationship which seem impossible to share, the secretly disturbing, dissatisfying elements, are the most rewarding to share. This is a hard, risky, frightening thing to learn, and it needs to be re-learned over and over. — Carl Rogers

As no one else can know how we perceive, we are the best experts on ourselves. — Carl Rogers

I have learned that in any significant or continuing relationship, feelings which are persistent had best be expressed. If they are expressed as feelings owned by me, the result may be temporarily upsetting but ultimately far more rewarding than any attempt to deny or conceal them. — Carl Rogers

Growth occurs when individuals confront problems, struggle to master them, and through that struggle develop new aspects of their skills, capacities, views about life. — Carl Rogers

Life is about Being & Becoming — Carl Rogers

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

This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. — Carl Rogers

The sense of community does not arise out of collective movement, nor from conforming to some group direction. Quite the contrary. Each individual tends to use the opportunity to become all that he or she can become. Separateness and diversity - the uniqueness of being "me" - are experienced — Carl Rogers

Facilitative attitudes (and skills) can help a therapist gain entry into the group Freedom from a desire to control the outcome, and respect for the capacity of the group, and skills in releasing individual expression Openness to all attitudes no matter how extreme or unrealistic they may seem Acceptance of the problems experienced by the group where they are clearly defined as issues Allowance of the freedom of choices in direction, either for the group or individuals particularly in the near future — Carl Rogers

The only person who cannot be helped is that person who blames others. — Carl Rogers

To be original, or different, is felt to be "dangerous." — Carl Rogers