Top 745 Quotes & Sayings by Stephen Covey
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American educator Stephen Covey.
Last updated on September 16, 2024.
Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.
Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition - such as lifting weights - we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.
Synergy is what happens when one plus one equals ten or a hundred or even a thousand! It's the profound result when two or more respectful human beings determine to go beyond their preconceived ideas to meet a great challenge.
Leadership is a choice, not a position.
Accountability breeds response-ability.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind 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.
Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.
In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.
What is common sense isn't common practice.
Between stimulus and response, there is a space where we choose our response.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
We see the world not as it is, but as we are.
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.
Every time you think the problem is 'out there,' that very thought is the problem.
The challenge of work-life balance is without question one of the most significant struggles faced by modern man.
When you really listen to another person from their point of view, and reflect back to them that understanding, it's like giving them emotional oxygen.
If you carefully consider what you want to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success.
You can't talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into.
Remember, we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
In school, many of us procrastinate and then successfully cram for tests. We get the grades and degrees we need to get the jobs we want, even if we fail to get a good general education.
If we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to keep getting what we're getting.
Listen with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply.
When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That's when you can get more creative in solving problems.
Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.
You can retire from a job, but don't ever retire from making extremely meaningful contributions in life.
A mission statement is not something you write overnight... But fundamentally, your mission statement becomes your constitution, the solid expression of your vision and values. It becomes the criterion by which you measure everything else in your life.
The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it.
It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.
Synergy is better than my way or your way. It's our way.
Stop setting goals. Goals are pure fantasy unless you have a specific plan to achieve them.
The deepest desire of the human spirit is to be acknowledged.
Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.
When it comes to developing character strength, inner security and unique personal and interpersonal talents and skills in a child, no institution can or ever will compare with, or effectively substitute for, the home's potential for positive influence.
The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty. And that can become a vicious, downward cycle. Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too.
The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things.
We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.
Reactive people... are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior.
The bottom line is, when people are crystal clear about the most important priorities of the organization and team they work with and prioritized their work around those top priorities, not only are they many times more productive, they discover they have the time they need to have a whole life.
What air is to the body, to feel understood is to the heart.
If you have a family mission statement that clarifies what your purpose is, then you use that as the criterion by which you make the decisions.
Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships.
The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.
Live out of your imagination, not your history.
To learn something but not to do is really not to learn. To know something but not to do is really not to know.
We become what we repeatedly do.
If there's one thing that's certain in business, it's uncertainty.
I believe in this concept that you learn by teaching.
Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.
Moral authority comes from following universal and timeless principles like honesty, integrity, treating people with respect.
If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm.
Instead, I have an abundance mentality: When people are genuinely happy at the successes of others, the pie gets larger.
There are three constants in life... change, choice and principles.
Begin with the end in mind.
Listen with your eyes for feelings.
An empowered organisation is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organisational success.
The true identity theft is not financial. It's not in cyberspace. It's spiritual. It's been taken.
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