Stephen Covey Quotes

Common sense is not always common practice.

Our lives are the results of our choices. To blame and accuse other people, the environment, or other extrinsic factors is to choose to empower those things to control us.

It's better to be trusted than to be liked.

Seek to understand before you seek to be understood.

You don't see the world as it is, you see it according to who you are.

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

Principles are deep fundamental truths... lightly interwoven threads running with exactness, consistency, beauty and strength through the fabric of life.

We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions.

Perhaps the most important vision of all is develop a sense of self, a sense of your own destiny, a sense of unique mission and role in life.

It's better to be humbled by the word than by the force of circumstances.

To be successful we must live from our imaginations, not from our memories.

Efficient management without effective leadership is, as one individual phrased, it, "like straightening deck chairs on the Titanic".

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

Whenever you experience stress of any kind, look into yourself and ask, In what way am I compromising my innermost values in this situation?

Happen to things, don't let things happen to you

We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals.

Moral authority comes from following universal and timeless principles like honesty, integrity, treating people with respect.

Employers and business leaders need people who can think for themselves - who can take initiative and be the solution to problems.

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 to get the job done.

When you have too many top priorities, you effectively have no top priorities.

Want to improve your relationships? See love as a verb rather than as a feeling?

You have to water the flowers you want to grow.

Leadership without mutual trust is a contradiction in terms.

Many people seem to think that success in one area can compensate for failure in other areas. But can it really?... True effectiveness requires balance.

Proactive people carry their own weather with them.

We can never really change someone; people must change themselves.

Some people achieve the top of the ladder and only then realise it was standing against the wrong wall.

Petty things become unimportant when people are impassioned about a purpose higher than self.

Empathy takes time, and efficiency is for things, not people.

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

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

If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm.

The place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our circle of influence, our own character.

People and organizations don't grow much without delegation and completed staff work because they are confined to the capacities of the boss and reflect both personal strengths and weaknesses

Management works in the system; leadership works on the system.

The deepest hunger of [a child's] human heart is to be understood, for understanding implicitly affirms, validates, recognizes and appreciates the intrinsic worth of another.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right?" wonder "Am I doing the right things?"

Response-ability is the ABILITY to choose our response to any circumstance or condition.

Basing our happiness on our ability to control everything is futile.

Building and repairing relationships are long-term investments.

Accountability breeds response-ability.

If you want to get something done, give it to a busy man.

Don't get buried in the thick of thin things.

Compliance does not foster innovation, trust does. You can't sustain long-term innovation, for example, in a climate of distrust.

The enemy of the "best" is often the "good."

The roots of the problems we face in the world, in our national life, and in our family and personal lives are spiritual.

If we can't make and keep commitments to ourselves as well as to others, our commitments become meaningless.

Management is formal authority given from above. Leadership is moral authority given from below and all around.

..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.

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