Quotes from Carl R. Rogers

The only way to understand another culture is to assume the frame of reference of that culture.

The mainspring of creativity appears to be the same tendency which we discover so deeply as the curative force in psychotherapy—man's tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities.

colossal rigidity, whether in dinosaurs or dictatorships, has a very poor record of evolutionary survival.

One of the most satisfying feelings I know—and also one of the most growth-promoting experiences for the other person—comes from my appreciating this individual in the same way that I appreciate a sunset. People are just as wonderful as sunsets if I can let them be. In fact, perhaps the reason we can truly appreciate a sunset is that we cannot control it.

Change threatens, and its possibility creates frightened, angry people. They are found in their purest essence on the extreme right, but in all of us there is some fear of process, of change.

I found myself doing this same thing—playing a role of having greater certainty and greater competence than I really possess. I can't tell you how disgusted with myself I felt as I realized what I was doing: I was not being me, I was playing a part.

It seems to me that anything that can be taught to another is relatively inconsequential, and has little or no significant influence on behavior.

I would prefer my experiences in communication to have a growth-promoting effect, both on me and on the other, and I should like to avoid those communication experiences in which both I and the other person feel diminished.

the more the therapist becomes a real person and avoids self-protective or professional masks or roles, the more the patient will reciprocate and change in a constructive direction. Of course, the therapist should accept the patient nonjudgmentally and unconditionally. And, of course, the therapist must enter empathically into the private world of the client.

Das Persönliche ist das Allgmeine.

Time and again in my clients, I have seen simple people become significant and creative in their own spheres, as they have developed more trust of the processes going on within themselves, and have dared to feel their own feelings, live by values which they discover within, and express themselves in their own unique ways.

It becomes easier for me to accept myself as a decidedly imperfect person, who by no means functions at all times in the way in which I would like to function.

letting my experience carry me on, in a direction which appears to be forward, toward goals that I can but dimly define, as I try to understand at least the current meaning of that experience.

I would like to make it very plain that these are learnings which have significance for me. I do not know whether they would hold true for you. I have no desire to present them as a guide for anyone else. Yet I have found that when another person has been willing to tell me something of his inner directions this has been of value to me, if only in sharpening my realization that my directions are different.

I believe that even our most abstract and philosophical views spring from an intensely personal base.

I have come to recognize that the reason I devote myself to research, and to the building of theory, is to satisfy a need for perceiving order and meaning, a subjective need which exists in me.

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.

Man's awesome scientific advances into the infinitude of space as well as the infinitude of sub-atomic particles seems most likely to lead to the total destruction of our world unless we can make great advances in understanding and dealing with interpersonal and inter-group tensions. I

In therapy the individual learns to recognize and express his feelings as his own feelings, not as a fact about another person.

From what I have been saying, I trust it is clear that when I can permit realness in myself or sense it or permit it in another, I am very satisfied. When I cannot permit it in myself or fail to permit it in another, I am very distressed.

To be responsibly self-directing means that one chooses—and then learns from the consequences. So clients find this a sobering but exciting kind of experience.

Another learning which cost me much to recognize, can be stated in four words. The facts are friendly. (...) Especially in our early investigations I can well remember the anxiety of waiting to see how the findings came out. Suppose our hypotheses were disproved! Suppose we were mistaken in our views! (...) I have perhaps been slow in coming to realize that the facts are always friendly. Every bit of evidence that one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true.

It was found in practice that when the examinations were conducted in a spirit which led up to conclusions which were bits of advice, often no action was taken; whereas by leaving it to spontaneity in the individual and to his own sense of responsibility, action is taken in the overwhelming majority of cases.

He is learning that the feelings which exist are good enough to live by. They do not have to be coated with a veneer