Quote

We think we listen, but very rarely do we listen with real understanding, true empathy. Yet listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most potent forces for change that I know.

Carl Rogers

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Carl Rogers
Age: 85 †
Born: 1902
Born: January 8
Died: 1987
Died: February 4
Non-Fiction Writer
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Oak Park
Illinois
Carl Ransom Rogers
Understanding
Force
Potent
True
Empathy
Change
Rarely
Real
Forces
Kind
Listening
Think
Listen
Thinking
Special

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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.
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Life, at its best, is a flowing, changing process in which nothing is fixed.
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The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.
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When a person realizes he has been deeply heard, his eyes moisten. I think in some real sense he is weeping for joy. It is as though he were saying, Thank God, somebody heard me. Someone knows what it's like to be me.
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It's an awful risky thing to live
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The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
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Though modern Marriage is a tremendous laboratory, its members are often without preparation for the partnership function. How much agony and remorse and failure could have been avoided if there had been at least some rudimentary learning before they entered the partnership.
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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.
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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.
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We cannot change, we cannot move away from what we are, until we thoroughly accept what we are. Then change seems to come about almost unnoticed.
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Experience is the highest authority.
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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.
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Allowance of the freedom of choices in direction, either for the group or individuals particularly in the near future.
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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.
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Loneliness is a barrier that prevents one from uniting with the inner self.
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The paradigm of Western culture is that the essence of persons is dangerous thus, they must be taught, guided, and controlled by those with superior authority.
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It is astonishing how elements that seem insoluble become soluble when someone listens.
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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
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There is in every organism, at whatever level, an underlying flow of movement toward constructive fulfillment of its inherent possibilities.
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It is the client who knows what hurts, what directions to go, what problems are crucial, what experiences have been deeply buried.
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