Top 100 Stephen R. Covey Quotes
#1. Sincere apologies make deposits; repeated apologies interpreted as insincere make withdrawals. And the quality of the relationship reflects it.
Stephen R. Covey
#2. It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busyness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy - very busy - without being very effective.
Stephen R. Covey
#3. It simply makes no difference how good the rhetoric is or even how good the intentions are; if there is little or no trust, there is no foundation for permanent success.
Stephen R. Covey
#6. He (Anwar Sadat) records that he was almost loathe to leave his prison cell because it was there that he realized that real success is success with self. It's not in having things, but in having mastery, having victory over self.
Stephen R. Covey
#8. The person who doesn't read is no better off than the person who can't read.
Stephen R. Covey
#10. Effective people lead their lives and manage their relationships around principles; ineffective people attempt to manage their time around priorities and their tasks around goals. Think effectiveness with people; efficiency with things.
Stephen R. Covey
#11. 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
Stephen R. Covey
#12. Happiness - in part at least - the fruit of the desire and ability to sacrifice waht we want for what we want eventually
Stephen R. Covey
#13. There is no effectiveness without discipline, and there is no discipline without character.
Stephen R. Covey
#14. Suddenly I saw things differently, and because I saw differently, I thought differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently.
Stephen R. Covey
#15. Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own effort. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success. If I were physically dependent - paralyzed or disabled or limited
Stephen R. Covey
#16. The undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions
Stephen R. Covey
#17. To judge someone before understanding that person is a form of human rejection and feeds upon itself. It intensifies personal insecurities, necessitating more judgment (prejudice) and less understanding. The processes continue in this vicious cycle.
Stephen R. Covey
#18. We are free to choose our actions, ... but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.
Stephen R. Covey
#19. While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.
Stephen R. Covey
#20. I think the most significant work we'll do in our whole life, in our whole world is done within the four walls of our home.
Stephen R. Covey
#22. what is the truth about the inner motivations, character, and ambition of those who hold power?
Stephen R. Covey
#23. understanding. As one successful parent said about raising children, "Treat them all the same by treating them differently." Attending to the Little Things
Stephen R. Covey
#24. It is much more ennobling to the human spirit to let people judge themselves than to judge them. And
Stephen R. Covey
#25. My behavior is a product of my own conscious choices based on principles, rather than a product of my conditions, based on feelings.
Stephen R. Covey
#26. habit as the intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire.
Stephen R. Covey
#27. For those filled with regret, perhaps the most needful exercise of proactivity is to realize that past mistakes are also out there in the Circle of Concern. We can't recall them, we can't undo them, we can't control the consequences that came as a result.
Stephen R. Covey
#28. Anything less than a conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.
Stephen R. Covey
#29. It is our willing permission, our consent to what happens to us, that hurts us far more than what happens to us in the first place.
Stephen R. Covey
#30. If I am emotionally interdependent, I derive a great sense of worth within myself, but I also recognize the need for love, for giving, and for receiving love from others.
Stephen R. Covey
#31. Consequences are governed by principles, and behavior is governed by values, therefore, value principles!
Stephen R. Covey
#32. 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.
Stephen R. Covey
#34. 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.
Stephen R. Covey
#35. 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.
Stephen R. Covey
#36. Becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms.
Stephen R. Covey
#37. Animals do not possess this ability. We call it "self-awareness" or the ability to think about your very thought process.
Stephen R. Covey
#38. 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.
Stephen R. Covey
#39. I realized that Sandra and I had been getting social mileage out of our children's good behavior, and, in our eyes, this son simply didn't measure up.
Stephen R. Covey
#40. 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.
Stephen R. Covey
#41. The reflection of the current social paradigm tells us we are largely determined by conditioning and conditions.
Stephen R. Covey
#42. 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.
Stephen R. Covey
#45. 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.
Stephen R. Covey
#46. One of the most inspirational people I have ever known is Viktor Frankl,
Stephen R. Covey
#47. As you care less about what people think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves.
Stephen R. Covey
#48. Principles are the simplicity on the far side of complexity.
Stephen R. Covey
#49. Independence is an important, even vital, value and achievement. The problem is, we live in an interdependent reality, and our most important accomplishments require interdependency skills well beyond our present abilities.
Stephen R. Covey
#50. The PC principle is to always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
Stephen R. Covey
#51. Most believe that the key to influence is communication - getting your point across clearly and speaking persuasively. In fact, if you think about it, don't you find that, while others are speaking to you, instead of really listening to understand, you are often busy preparing your response?
Stephen R. Covey
#53. You can't be successful with other people if you haven't paid the price of success with yourself.
Stephen R. Covey
#54. Statement - and then to bring that sense of mission, of purpose, to your
Stephen R. Covey
#55. Organizations are composed of people, and the more effective those people, the stronger the organization.
Stephen R. Covey
#56. Is it logical that two people can disagree and that both can be right? It's not logical: it's psychological. And it's very real.
Stephen R. Covey
#57. We are either the second creation of our own proactive design, or we are the second creation of other people's agendas, of circumstances, or of past habits.
Stephen R. Covey
#58. Out of his private victories, public victories began to come.
Stephen R. Covey
#59. more important than how fast you're going, is where you're headed.
Stephen R. Covey
#60. Each of us guard a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside.
Stephen R. Covey
#61. The message sent to one is truly sent to all because everyone is a "one," and they know that if you treat one that way, all it takes is a change of circumstances and you'll treat them that way, too.
Stephen R. Covey
#62. Character Ethic as the foundation of success - things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule.
Stephen R. Covey
#63. We see the world, not as it is, but as we are--or, as we are conditioned to see it.
Stephen R. Covey
#64. The purpose of teaching is learning and learning is changed behavior.
Stephen R. Covey
#65. If I were emotionally dependent, my sense of worth and security would come from your opinion of me.
Stephen R. Covey
#66. Changing a planning tool or a method won't create significant change in the results we're getting in our lives - although the implied promise is that it will. It's not a matter of controlling things more, better, or faster; it's questioning the whole assumption of control.
Stephen R. Covey
#67. What one thing could you do in your personal and professional life that, if you did it on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your life?
Stephen R. Covey
#68. 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.
Stephen R. Covey
#69. What is the one activity that you know if you did superbly well and consistently would have significant positive results in your personal life? What is the one activity that you know if you did superbly well and consistently would have significant positive results in your professional or work life?
Stephen R. Covey
#70. Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.
Stephen R. Covey
#71. responsibility - "response-ability" - the ability to choose your response.
Stephen R. Covey
#72. 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.
Stephen R. Covey
#73. While we must learn from good examples and keep always in mind the bigger goal, we must compare ourselves only with ourselves. We can't focus or base our happiness on another's progress; we can focus only on our own.
Stephen R. Covey
#74. The thing I learned is that you don't invent your mission, you detect it. You uncover it, as it were.
Stephen R. Covey
#75. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
Stephen R. Covey
#77. So you have to weigh that consequence against the other consequence and make a choice. I know if it were me, I'd choose to go on the tennis trip. But never say you have to do anything.
Stephen R. Covey
#78. The organization does not have to be at the mercy of the environment; it can take the initiative to accomplish the shared values and purposes of the individuals involved.
Stephen R. Covey
#79. Family itself is a "we" experience, a "we" mentality. And admittedly, the movement from "me" to "we" - from independence to interdependence - is perhaps one of the most challenging and difficult aspects of family life.
Stephen R. Covey
#80. People who exercise their freedom day after day, little by little, expand that freedom. People who do not will find that it withers until they are literally 'being lived.' [That is, until] they are acting out scripts written by parents, associates and society.
Stephen R. Covey
#81. When you engage in a work that taps your talent and fuels your passion
that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet
therein lies your voice, your calling, your soul's code.
Stephen R. Covey
#82. Interdependence is a far more mature, more advanced concept. If I am physically interdependent, I am self-reliant and capable, but I also realize that you and I working together can accomplish far more than, even at my best, I could accomplish alone.
Stephen R. Covey
#83. Through imagination, we can visualize the uncredited worlds of potential that lie within us.
Stephen R. Covey
#84. I've learned that once children gain a sense of real possession, they share very naturally, freely, and spontaneously.
Stephen R. Covey
#85. In the words of William George Jordan, "Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or evil - the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be." T
Stephen R. Covey
#86. To Retain those who are present, be loyal to those who are absent.
Stephen R. Covey
#87. If you wait to be acted upon, you will be acted upon. And growth and opportunity consequences attend either road.
Stephen R. Covey
#88. There might be exceptions - and if so, you might rethink their employment - but few people really want to be mediocre. Most of your team members want to make a valued contribution - to find purpose in their work.
Stephen R. Covey
#89. Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential.
Stephen R. Covey
#90. Systems. They are self-evident and can easily be validated by any individual. It's almost as if these principles or natural laws are part of the human condition, part of the human consciousness, part of the human conscience. They seem to exist in all human beings, regardless of social conditioning
Stephen R. Covey
#91. 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.
Stephen R. Covey
#93. You must be open and influenceable; then ironically, you will also discover an increase in your own power to influence
Stephen R. Covey
#94. No matter how long we've walked life's pathway to mediocrity, we can always choose to switch paths. Always. It's never too late. We can find our voice.
Stephen R. Covey
#95. The core of any family is what is changeless, what is going to be there--shared vision and values.
Stephen R. Covey
#97. We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first.
Stephen R. Covey
#98. In the midst of the most degrading circumstances imaginable, Frankl used the human endowment of self-awareness to discover a fundamental principle about the nature of man: Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.
Stephen R. Covey
#99. When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.
Stephen R. Covey
#100. Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make
Stephen R. Covey
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