Top 745 Quotes & Sayings by Stephen Covey - Page 12

The 8th Habit, then, is not about adding one more habit to the 7 - one that somehow got forgotten. It's about seeing and harnessing the power of a third dimension to the 7 Habits that meets the central challenge of the new Knowledge Worker Age. The 8th Habit is to Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs.

You may be good, but what are you good for? You've got to be good for something. You've got to be about some project, some task that requires you to be humble and obedient to the universal principles of service. You've got to live a life of complete and total integrity in order to give this kind of service. This integrity enables you to love other people unconditionally, to be courageous and kind at the same time, because you have integratedness inside your own soul.

During the first few minutes in lift-off, the astronauts were strictly controlled and were powerfully buffeted by the forces of nature struggling to keep them on earth. This is somewhat comparable to the pull of the flesh when our alarm goes off early in the morning. Unless we put "mind over mattress" and carry out the resolves made the night before, we will experience our first defeat that day. Not sufficient to finish. Mission aborted.

Consequences are governed by principles, and behavior is governed by values; therefore, value principles!

Perhaps the greatest role of parenting, more than directing and telling children what to do, [is] helping [children] connect with their own gifts, particularly conscience.

If you say to one flower, 'Grow,' but you water another, the first one won't grow.

Private Victory precedes Public Victory. Algebra comes before calculus.

There are certain things that are fundamental to human fulfillment. The essence of these needs is captured in the phrase 'to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy.' The need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution.

We do make a difference - one way or the other. We are responsible for the impact of our lives. Whatever we do with whatever we have, we leave behind us a legacy for those who follow.

If we overcome the pull and "get up and get at it," we will have won a victory. We have kept our own resolve. We can then move to other things, for by small means great things are accomplished. Thus, even this one small step is also in another sense a giant leap.

What difference would a clear vision of my principles, values, and ultimate objectives make in the way I spend my time?

Real excellence does not come cheaply. A certain price must be paid in terms of practice, patience, and persistence - natural ability notwithstanding.

More essential than working on attitudes and behaviors is examining the paradigms out of which those attitudes and behaviors flow.

When your happiness comes primarily from the happiness of others, you know you have moved from a 'me' experience to a 'we' experience. And the whole problem-solving and opportunity-seizing process changes.

Principles are the basis for developing a vision and value system for all.

Visualising something organises one's ability to accomplish it.

Independent thinking alone is not suited to interdependent reality.

Whether or not we belong to a church or service organization or have a job that provides meaningful service opportunities, not a day goes by that we can't at least serve one other human being by making deposits of unconditional love.

"You can buy a person's hand, but you can't buy their 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 his resourcefulness."

When we succumb to believing that we are victims of our circumstances and yield to the plight of determinism, we lose hope, we lose drive, and we settle into resignation and stagnation.

We're often so busy cutting through the undergrowth we don't even realise we're in the wrong jungle.

It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity.

The ability to manage well doesn't make much difference if you're not even in the right jungle.

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.

Trust is the glue in relationships and organizations

Only 20 percent of employees working in large organizations surveyed feel their strengths are in play every day. Thus, eight our of ten employees surveyed feel somewhat miscast in their role.

Humility is the mother of all virtues: the humble in spirit progress and are blessed because they willingly submit to higher powers and try to live in harmony with natural laws and universal principles. Courage is the father of all virtues; we need great courage to lead our lives by correct principles and to have integrity in the moment of choice.

I'm convinced that we can write and live our own scripts more than most people will acknowledge. I also know the price that must be paid. It's a real struggle to do it. It requires visualization and affirmation. It involves living a life of integrity, starting with making and keeping promises, until the whole human personality the senses, the thinking, the feeling, and the intuition are ultimately integrated and harmonized.

'In empathic listening you listen with your ears, but you also, and more importantly, listen with you eyes and with your heart. You listen for feeling, for meaning. You listen for behaviour. You use your right brain as well as your left. You sense, you intuit, you feel.' ... 'You have to open yourself up to be influenced'.

Our capacity for production and enjoyment is a function, in the last analysis, of our character, our integrity.

I believe that correct principles are natural laws, and that God, the Creator and Father of us all, is the source of them, and also the source of our conscience. I believe that to the degree people live by this inspired conscience, they will grow to fulfill their natures; to the degree that they do not, they will not rise above the animal plane.

Whether we are aware of it or not, whether we are in control of it or not, there is a first creation to every part of our lives. 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.

It's not that we ignore our weaknesses; rather, we make our weaknesses irrelevant by working effectively with others so that we compensate for our weaknesses through their strengths and they compensate for their weaknesses through our strengths.

As human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values.

We are free to choose our response in any situation, but in doing so we chose the attendant consequence. If we pick up one end of the stick, we pick up the other.

You can say you love someone - but unless you demonstrate that love through your actions, your words become meaningless.

Keep in mind that you are always saying "no" to something. If it isn't to the apparent and urgent things in your life, it is probably to the most fundamental, highly important things.

It's not only a matter of when to do things, but whether or not to do them at all.

In my own experience, both personally and professionally, I've learned that you don't wait to confront reality. It doesn't get easier. It doesn't get better. And, in some cases, if you don't get the relevant information from people and act quickly, you start losing options. You're into damage control.

What is important to another person must be as important to you as the other person is to you

The only person over whom you have direct and immediate control is yourself. The most important assets to develop, preserve and enhance, therefore, are your own capabilities. And no one can do it for you. You must cultivate the habit of leadership effectiveness for yourself - and doing so will be the single best investment you will ever make.

Vision is about more than just getting things done, accomplishing some task, achieving something; it is about discovering and expanding our view of others, affirming them, believing in them, and helping them discover and realize the potential within them-helping them find their own voice.

If there is no gardener there is no garden.

Habit 7 is taking the time to sharpen the saw. By renewing the four dimensions of your nature - physical, spiritual, mental and social/emotional, you can work more quickly and effortlessly. To do this, we must be proactive. This is a Quadrant II (important, not urgent) activity that must be acted on. It's at the center of our Circle of Influence, so we must do it for ourselves.

When you study the lives of all great achievers-those who have had the greatest influence on others, those who have made things happen-you will find a pattern. Through their persistent efforts and inner struggle, they have greatly expanded their four native human intelligences or capacities. The highest manifestations of these four intelligences are: for mental, vision; for the physical, discipline; for the emotional, passion; for the spiritual, conscience. These manifestations also represent our highest means of expressing our voice.

When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air.

Spiritual Intelligence represents our drive for meaning and connection with the infinite.

Satisfied needs do not motivate. It's only the unsatisfied need that motivates. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival - to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.

As a principle-centered person you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act on you, and evaluate the options. Looking at the balanced whole-the work needs, the family needs, the other needs that may be involved, and the possible implications of the various alternatives - you'll try to come up with the best solution taking all factors into consideration. We are limited but we can push back the borders of our limitations.

A personal mission statement becomes the DNA for every other decision we make.

Highly effective people tend to be proactive. They decide to find a better job or to have better health, rather than of responding to whatever curves life throws at them.

True effectiveness is a function of two things: what is produced (the golden eggs) and the producing asset (the goose).

There are principles that govern human effectiveness - natural laws in the human dimension that are just as real, just as unchanging and unarguably there as laws such as gravity are in the physical dimension.

The principle of fasting is taught in almost all major world religions as a means of developing a higher level of self-mastery and self-control, and also a deeper awareness of how really dependent we are.

Difference is the beginning of synergy.

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.

If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so.

Effective people stay out of Quadrants III and IV because, urgent or not, they aren't important. They also shrink Quadrant I down to size by spending more time in Quadrant II...Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management.

The reflection of the current social paradigm tells us we are largely determined by conditioning and conditions.

Creating and integrating an empowering personal mission statement is one of the most important investments we can make.