Stephen R Covey Quotes

But until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise.

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.

Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.

Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships.

Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.

Start with the end in mind.

To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are──or, as we are conditioned to see it.

Strength lies in differences, not in similarities

When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.

Two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right. It's not logical; it's psychological.

It's not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.

We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behaviour.

We are free to choose our actions, . . . but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.

to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.

Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.

Habit is the intersection of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do), and desire (want to do).

The way we see the problem is the problem.

Love is a verb. Love – the feeling – is the fruit of love the verb or our loving actions. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her.

At some time in your life, you probably had someone believe in you when you didn't believe in yourself.

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.

Courage isn't absenct of fear, it is the awareness that something else is important

You can't talk your way out of a problem you behaved your way into!

Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential.

Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.

As you care less about what people think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves.

Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.

There's no better way to inform and expand you mind on a regular basis than to get into the habit of reading good literature.

If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.

People simply feel better about themselves when they’re good at something.

How you treat the one reveals how you regard the many, because everyone is ultimately a one.

How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most.

People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them.

I teach people how to treat me by what I will allow.

The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply.

It comes from within.

My wife and I just don't have the same feelings for each other we used to have. I guess I just don't love her anymore and she doesn't love me. What can i do?" "The feeling isn't there anymore?" I asked. "That's right," he reaffirmed. "And we have three children we're really concerned about. What do you suggest?" "love her," I replied. "I told you, the feeling just isn't there anymore." "Love her." "You don't understand. the feeling of love just isn't there." "Then love her. If the feeling isn't there, that's a good reason to love her." "But how do you love when you don't love?" "My friend , love is a verb. Love - the feeling - is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?

The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

If you want to have a more pleasant,cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, emphatic, consistent, loving parent.

When air is charged with emotions, an attempt to teach is often perceived as a form of judgment and rejection.

Independent will is our capacity to act. It gives us the power to transcend our paradigms, to swim upstream, to rewrite our scripts, to act based on principle rather than reacting based on emotion or circumstance.

The person who doesn’t read is no better off than the person who can’t read.

The only person I know, is the person I want to be

people have character strength but they lack communication skills, and that undoubtedly affects the quality of relationships as well.

We must look at the lens through we see the world, as well as the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world.

To maintain the P/PC Balance, the balance between the golden egg (production) and the health and welfare of the goose (production capability) is often a difficult judgment call. But I suggest it is the very essence of effectiveness.

Make small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

The undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions

The core of any family is what is changeless, what is going to be there──shared vision and values.

Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.

Attending church does not necessarily mean living the principles taught in those meeting. You can be active in a church but inactive in its gospel.

Don't argue for other people's weaknesses. Don't argue for your own. When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it, and learn from it / immediately.

leadership is communicating others’ worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.

Each of us guard a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside.

we're responsible for our own lives.

Trust is equal parts character and competence... You can look at any leadership failure, and it's always a failure of one or the other.

But borrowing strength builds weakness.

Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out

Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make

people are working harder than ever, but because they lack clarity and vision, they aren’t getting very far. They, in essence, are pushing a rope...with all of their might.

The first job of a leader—at work or at home—is to inspire trust. It’s to bring out the best in people by entrusting them with meaningful stewardships, and to create an environment in which high-trust interaction inspires creativity and possibility.

If we do not teach our children, societ will. And they-and we-will live with the results.

Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.

We hear a lot about identity theft when someone takes your wallet and pretends to be you and uses your credit cards. But the more serious identity theft is to get swallowed up in other people's definition of you.

Albert Einstein observed, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

You can't change the fruit without changing the root.

The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

To Retain those who are present, be loyal to those who are absent.

Principles are the territory. Values are maps. When we value correct principles, we have truth -- a knowledge of things as they are.

It's sometimes a painful process. It's a change that has to be motivated by a higher purpose, by the willingness to subordinate what you think you want now for what you want later.

Through imagination, we can visualize the uncredited worlds of potential that lie within us.

All the well-meaning advice in the world won't amount to a hill of beans if we're not even addressing the real problem.

Where we stand depends on where we sit." Each of us tends to think we see things as they are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. We see the world, not as it is, but as we are—or, as we are conditioned to see it. When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms. When other people disagree with us, we immediately think something is wrong with them.

If you don't let a teacher know what level you are -- by asking a question, or revealing your ignorance -- you will not learn or grow

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is today.

Being is seeing in the human dimension.

You can buy a person's hand, but you can't buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is. You can buy his back, but you can't buy his brain. That's where his creativity is, his ingenuity, his resourcefulness.

The way we see things is the source of the way we think or the way we act

They [Nazi captors]had more liberty, more options to choose from in their environment; but he [Viktor Frankl] had more freedom, more internal power to exercise his options.

Perhaps a sense of possessing needs to come to come before a sense of genuine sharing.

When other people disagree with us, we immediately think something is wrong with them. But, as the demonstration shows, sincere, clearheaded people see things differently, each looking through the unique lens of experience.

In a high-trust relationship, you can say the wrong thing, and people will still get your meaning. In a low-trust relationship, you can be very measured, even precise, and they’ll still misinterpret you.

We are not our feelings. We are not our moods. We are not even our thoughts. The very fact that we can think about these things separates us from them and from the animal world. Self-awareness enables us to stand apart and examine even the way we “see” ourselves—our self-paradigm, the most fundamental paradigm of effectiveness. It affects not only our attitudes and behaviors, but also how we see other people.

If you carefully consider what you wanted to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success.

People who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary, consistent with correct principles, to get the job done.

Above all, success in business requires two things: a winning competitive strategy, and superb organizational execution. Distrust is the enemy of both. I submit that while high trust won't necessarily rescue a poor strategy, low trust will almost always derail a good one.

In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon.

Show me someone who is humble enough to accept and take responsibility for his or her circumstances and courageous enough to take whatever initiative is necessary to creatively work his or her through or around these challenges, and I'll show you supreme power of choice.

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values—carefully thought about, selected and internalized values.

[W]isdom is the child of integrity—being integrated around principles. And integrity is the child of humility and courage. In fact, you could say that humility is the mother of all virtues because humility acknowledges that there are natural laws or principles that govern the universe. They are in charge. Pride teaches us that we are in charge. Humility teaches us to understand and live by principles, because they ultimately govern the consequences of our actions. If humility is the mother, courage is the father of wisdom. Because to truly live by these principles when they are contrary to social mores, norms and values takes enormous courage.

churchgoing is not synonymous with personal spirituality. There are some people who get so busy in church worship and projects that they become insensitive to the pressing human needs that sourround them, contradicting the very precepts they profess to believe deeply.

Inevitably, anytime we are too vulnerable we feel the need to protect ourselves from further wounds. So we resort to sarcasm, cutting humor, criticism -- anything that will keep from exposing the tenderness within. Each partner tends to wait on the initiative of the other for love, only to be disappointed but also confirmed as to the rightness of the accusations made.

Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase. Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. They focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. Their focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization. The negative energy generated by that focus, combined with neglect in areas they could do something about, causes their Circle of Influence to shrink.

If you organize your family life to spend even ten or fifteen minutes a morning reading something that connects you with these timeless principles, its almost guaranteed that you will make better choices during the day--in the family, on the job, in every dimension of life. Your thoughts will be higher. Your interactions will be more satisfying. You will have a greater perspective. You will increase that space between what happens to you and your response to it. You will be more connected to what really matters most.