Stephen Covey Quotes

345 Sourced Quotes

You think effectiveness with people and efficiency with things.

Stephen Covey
Vision is seeing a future state with the mind's eye. Vision is applied imagination.

Stephen Covey
When people have a real sense of legacy, a sense of mattering, a sense of contribution, it seems to tap into the deepest part of their heart and soul. It brings out the best and subordinates the rest.

Stephen Covey
The best way to develop courage is to set a goal and achieve it, make a promise and keep it.

Stephen Covey
If the only vision we have of ourselves comes from the social mirror - from the current social paradigm and from the opinions, perceptions, and paradigms of the people around us - our view of ourselves is like the reflection in a crazy mirror room at the carnival.

Stephen Covey
Vital to quality of life is the ability to work together, learn from each other, and help each other grow.

Stephen Covey
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.

Stephen Covey
We value the clock for its speed and efficiency. The clock has its place, efficiency has its place, after effectiveness. The symbol of effectiveness is the compass a sense of direction, purpose, vision, perspective, and balance. But the empowerment process itself is not efficient.

Stephen Covey
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.

Stephen Covey
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.

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

Stephen Covey
If you put good people in bad systems you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow.

Stephen Covey
We may find it convenient to live with the illusion that circumstances or other people are responsible for the quality of our lives, but the reality is that we are responsible-response-able-for our choices.

Stephen Covey
Love is a verb. Love – the feeling – is the fruit of love the verb or our loving actions. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her.

Stephen Covey
If we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms.

Stephen Covey
Retire from your job but never from meaningful projects. If you want to live a long life, you need eustress, that is, a deep sense of meaning and contribution to worthy projects and causes, particularly your intergenerational family.

Stephen Covey
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.

Stephen Covey
Everyone chooses one of two roads in life - the old and the young, the rich and the poor, men and women alike. One is the broad, well-traveled road to mediocrity, the other road to greatness and meaning.

Stephen Covey
We judge ourselves by our intentions. And others by their actions.

Stephen Covey
If your ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step you take just gets you to the wrong place faster.

Stephen Covey
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.

Stephen Covey
It's not enough to have values without vision; you want to be good, but you want to be good for something. On the other hand, vision without values can create a Hitler. An empowering mission statement deals with both character and competence; what you want to be and what you want to do in your life.

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

Stephen Covey
When parents see their children's problems as opportunities to build the relationship instead of as negative, burdensome irritations, it totally changes the nature of parent-child interaction. Parents become more willing, even excited, about deeply understanding and helping their children.... This paradigm is powerful in business as well.

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

Stephen Covey
Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.

Stephen Covey
Unless we exercise our power to choose wisely, our actions will be determined by conditions. Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.

Stephen Covey
Perform anonymous service. Whenever we do good for others anonymously, our sense of intrinsic worth and self-respect increases. … Selfless service has always been one of the most powerful methods of influence.

Stephen Covey
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.

Stephen Covey
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.

Stephen Covey