Stephen Covey Quotes

345 Sourced Quotes

Once you've found your own voice, the choice to expand your influence, to increase your contribution, is the choice to inspire others to find their voice.

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

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

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

Stephen Covey
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.

Stephen Covey
The first job of a leader-at work or at home-is to inspire trust. It's to bring out the best in people by entrusting them with meaningful stewardships, and to create an environment in which high-trust interaction inspires creativity and possibility.

Stephen Covey
When people seriously undertake to identify what really matters most to them in their lives, what they really want to be and do, they become very reverent. They start to think in larger terms than today and tomorrow.

Stephen Covey
Principles don't die. They aren't here one day and gone the next. They can't be destroyed by fire, earthquake or theft. Principles are deep, fundamental truths, classic truths.

Stephen Covey
When one side benefits more than the other, that's a win-lose situation. To the winner it might look like success for a while, but in the long run, it breeds resentment and distrust.

Stephen Covey
The greatest and most inspiring mountain climbing achievements in history are not so much stories of individual achievement, but are stories of the extraordinary power of a unified, talented, prepared team that stays loyally committed to one another and to their shared vision to the end.

Stephen Covey
When we value correct principles, we have truth - a knowledge of things as they are.

Stephen Covey
The key to creating passion in your life is to find your unique talents, and your special role and purpose in the world.

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

Stephen Covey
It takes courage to realize that you are greater than your moods, greater than your thoughts, and that you can control your moods and thoughts.

Stephen Covey
The more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, the more we can take responsibility for those paradigms, examine them, test them against reality, listen to others and be open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view.

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

Stephen Covey
True independence of character empowers us to act rather than be acted upon.

Stephen Covey
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.

Stephen Covey
Win-win is a belief in the Third Alternative. It's not your way or my way; it's a better way, a higher way.

Stephen Covey
Above all, success in business requires two things: a winning competitive strategy, and superb organizational execution. Distrust is the enemy of both. I submit that while high trust won't necessarily rescue a poor strategy, low trust will almost always derail a good one.

Stephen Covey
None of us see the world as it is but as we are, as our frames of reference, or maps, define the territory.

Stephen Covey
Always surround yourself with people who are even more talented and competent than you.

Stephen Covey
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.

Stephen Covey
The key to motivation is motive. It's the why. It's the deeper yes! burning inside that makes it easier to say no to the less important.

Stephen Covey
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.

Stephen Covey
Remember that our reactions are a product of our perceptions, and our perceptions are a result of what is at the center of our life.

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

Stephen Covey
It is in the ordinary events of every day that we develop the proactive capacity to handle the extraordinary pressures of life. It's how we make and keep commitments, how we handle a traffic jam, how we respond to an irate customer or a disobedient child. It's how we view our problems and where we focus our energies. It's the language we use.

Stephen Covey
Over time, I have come to this simple definition of leadership: Leadership is getting results in a way that inspires trust.

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

Stephen Covey