Stephen Covey Quotes

The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.

Listen with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply.

Start with the end in mind.

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say ‘no’ to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

The best way to predict your future is to create it.

If you want to make minor, incremental changes and improvements, work on practices, behavior or attitude. But if you want to make significant, quantum improvement, work on paradigms.

If there’s one thing that’s certain in business, it’s uncertainty.

Leadership is a choice, not a position.

We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.

Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.

I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a “transformer” in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader.

Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.

Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic.

The inside-out approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness means that our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.

Don’t argue for other people’s weaknesses. Don’t argue for your own. When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it, and learn from it – immediately.

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.

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

To change ourselves effectively, we first have to change our perceptions.

Our character is a composite of our habits.

Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.

People simply feel better about themselves when they’re good at something.

Time management is really a misnomer – the challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.

If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control – myself.

Every human has four endowments – self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom.

Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value.

I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a ‘transformer’ in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader.

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.

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.

Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.

Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.

Start with the end in mind.

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage – pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically – to say ‘no’ to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside.

It is one thing to make a mistake, and quite another thing not to admit it. People will forgive mistakes, because mistakes are usually of the mind, mistakes of judgment. But people will not easily forgive the mistakes of the heart, the ill intention, the bad motives, the prideful justifying cover-up of the first mistake.

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.

The way we see the problem is the problem.

The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it.

Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.

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.

If you want to make small, incremental changes, work on your behavior. If you want to make quantum leaps in results, work on your paradigms.