Top 745 Quotes & Sayings by Stephen Covey - Page 8

What one great idea resonates deeper in the soul than any other...that we are free to choose. Next to life itself, the power to choose is your greatest gift.

Empathic listening takes time, but it doesn't take anywhere near as much time as it takes to back up and correct misunderstandings when you're already miles down the road; to redo; to live with unexpressed and unsolved problems; to deal with the results of not giving people psychological air.

I define discipline as the ability to make + keep promises and to honor commitments.

An abundance mentality springs from internal security, not from external rankings, comparisons, opinions, possessions, or associations.

Interdependence is a higher value than independence

Intrinsic security doesn't come from what other people think of us or how they treat us. It doesn't come from our circumstance or out position. It comes from within. It comes from accurate paradigms and correct principles deep in our own mind and heart. It comes from inside-out congruence, from living a life of integrity in which our daily habits reflect our deepest values.

True leadership is moral authority, not formal authority. Leadership is a choice, not a position. The choice is to follow universal timeless principles, which will build trust and respect from the entire organization. Those with formal authority alone will lose this trust and respect.

You can't have the fruits without the roots. It's the principle of sequencing: Private Victories proceed Public Victories. Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships with others.

Almost all of the world-class athletes and other peak performers are visualizers. They see it; they feel it; they experience it before hey actually do it. They begin with the end in mind.

If you're proactive, you don't have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective expanding experiences. You can consciously create your own.

Frustration is a function of our expectations, and our expectations are often a reflection of the social mirror rather than our own values and priorities.

A good affirmation has five basic ingredients: it's personal, it's positive, it's present tense, it's visual, and it's emotional.

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 real beginning of influence comes as others sense you are being influenced by them - when they feel understood by you - that you have listened deeply and sincerely, and that you are open.

People don't listen to understand. They listen to reply. The collective monologue is everyone talking and no one listening.

Whatever your present situation, I assure you that you are not your habits. You can replace old patterns of self-defeating behavior with new patterns, new habits of the effectiveness, happiness and trust-based relationships.

Being proactive is more than taking initiative. It is recognizing that we are responsible for our own choices and have the freedom to choose based on principles and values rather than on moods or condition. Proactive people are agents of change and choose not to be victims, to be reactive, or to blame others.

Time management is a misnomer, the challenge is to manage ourselves.

Everyone has values; even criminal gangs have values. Values govern people's behavior but principles govern the consequences of those behaviors.

Affirm people. Affirm your children. Believe in them, not in what you see but in what you don't see - their potential.

This is the single most powerful investment we can ever make in life—investment in ourselves, in the only instrument we have with which to deal with life and to contribute.

I try to exercise regularly every day, if I can. It renews you and it gives you more balance in your life. This is a key leverage point.

Would you not agree that relationships are built on trust? Would you not also agree that most individuals think more in terms of "me-my wants, my needs, my rights? What would wisdom dictate - would it not direct us to focus on trust-building principles and sacrificing 'me' for 'we'?"

In effective personal leadership, visualization and affirmation techniques emerge naturally out of a foundation of well thought through purposes and principles that become the center of a person's life.

The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it. This literally turns a failure into a success.

I believe that a life of integrity I the most fundamental source of personal worth. I do not agree with the popular success literature that says that self-esteem is primarily a matter of mind set, of attitude-that you can psych yourself into peace of mind. Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.

True greatness will be achieved through the abundant mind that works selflessly - with mutual respect, for mutual benefit.

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

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.

Nothing is more exciting and bonding in relationships than creating together.

I believe that there are parts to human nature that cannot be reached by either legislation or education, but require the power of God to deal with.

If the big rocks don't go in first, they aren't going to fit in later.

An empowering mission statement has to become a living document, part of our very nature, so that the criteria we've put into it are also in us, in the way we live our lives day by day.

The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are.

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

Self-awareness is our capacity to stand apart from ourselves and examine our thinking, our motives, our history, our scripts, our actions, and our habits and tendencies.

Someone once inquired of a Far Eastern Zen master, who had a great serenity and peace about him no matter what pressures he faced, "How do you maintain that serenity and peace?" He replied, "I never leave my place of meditation." He meditated early in the morning and for the rest of the day, he carried the peace of those moments with him in his mind and heart.

Leadership without mutual trust is a contradiction in terms.

Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.

All things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things

The more people train their counsciousness, the more sensitivie they are to it. It's like you had your own voice coming to you.

Network marketing has come of age. It's undeniable that it has become a way to entrepreneurship and independence for millions of people

We could not have gotten where we are without coming the way we came.

Until we take how we see ourselves (and how we see others) into account, we will be unable to understand how others see and feel about themselves and their world. Unaware, we will project our intentions on their behavior and call ourselves objective.

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

We may be very busy, we may be very 'efficient', but we will also be truly 'effective' only when we begin with the end in mind.

We can act instead of being acted upon.

The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.

Patience is emotional diligence.

You think effectiveness with people and efficiency with things.

Do what is important, not what is urgent.

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

We all go through stages. Concerns about appearances, making good impressions, being popular, comparing yourself to others, having unbridled ambition, wanting to make money, striving to be recognized and noticed and trying to establish yourself, all fade as your responsibilities and character grow.

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.

We must seek to understand the intent of communication without prejudging or rejecting the content... Communication, after all, is not so much a matter of intellect as it is of trust and acceptance of others, of their ideas and feelings, acceptance of the fact that they're different, and that from their point of view, they are right.

I can change. I can live out of my imagination instead of my memory. I can tie myself to my limitless potential instead of my limiting past

Innocent pleasures in moderation can provide relaxation for the body and mind and can foster family and other relationships. But pleasure, per se, offers no deep, lasting satisfaction or sense of fulfillment. The pleasure-centered person, too soon bored with each succeeding level of "fun," constantly cries for more and more. So the next new pleasure has to be bigger and better, more exciting, with a bigger "high." A person in this state becomes almost entirely narcissistic, interpreting all of life in terms of the pleasure it provides to the self here and now.

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

As you begin to think more in terms of importance, you begin to see time differently.

We think we see the world as it is, when in fact we see the world as we are.