Stephen Covey Quotes

345 Sourced Quotes

If you want to have a more pleasant, cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, emphatic, consistent, loving parent.

Stephen Covey
How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most.

Stephen Covey
If you don't know yourself, if you don't control yourself, if you don't have mastery over yourself, it's very hard to like yourself, except in some short-term, psych-up, superficial way.

Stephen Covey
Inspire (from the Latin inspirare) means to breathe life into another.

Stephen Covey
The undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions

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

Stephen Covey
I am convinced that if we as a society work diligently in every other area of life and neglect
the family, it would be analogous to straightening deck chairs on the Titanic.

Stephen Covey
People simply feel better about themselves when they're good at something.

Stephen Covey
'Efficient' scheduling and control of time are often counterproductive. The efficiency focus creates expectations that clash with the opportunities to develop rich relationships, to meet human needs, and to enjoy spontaneous moments on a daily basis.

Stephen Covey
People behave more on the basis of how they feel than how they think; unless there are good feelings between people, it is almost impossible to reason intelligently.

Stephen Covey
Because of the space between stimulus and response, people have the power of choice; therefore, leaders are neither born nor made — meaning environmentally trained and nurtured. They are self-made through chosen responses, and if they choose based on principles and develop increasingly greater discipline, their freedom to choose increases.

Stephen Covey
Doing more things faster is no substitute for doing the right things.

Stephen Covey
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.

Stephen Covey
Paradigms are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world.

Stephen Covey
To Retain those who are present, be loyal to those who are absent.

Stephen Covey
As you live your values, your sense of identity, integrity, control, and inner-directedness will infuse you with both exhilaration and peace. You will define yourself from within, rather than by people's opinions or by comparisons to others.

Stephen Covey
The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.

Stephen Covey
Live the law of love. We encourage obedience to the laws of life when we live the laws of love.

Stephen Covey
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.

Stephen Covey
The most effective way I know to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement or philosophy or creed. It focused on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based.

Stephen Covey
People who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary to get the job done.

Stephen Covey
The more authentic you become, the more genuine in your expression, particularly regarding personal experiences and even self-doubts, the more people can relate to your expression and the safer it makes them feel to express themselves. That expression, in turn, feeds on the other person's spirit, and genuine creative empathy takes place, producing new insights and learnings and a sense of excitement and adventure that keeps the process going.

Stephen Covey
Integrity is conforming reality to our words - in other words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations.

Stephen Covey
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.

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

Stephen Covey
Most people think of leadership as a position and therefore don't see themselves as leaders.

Stephen Covey
Those who get the most out of life and those who give the most are those who make the choice to act.

Stephen Covey
Once we are self-aware, we must choose purposes and principles to live by; otherwise the vacuum will be filled, and we will lose our self-awareness and become like groveling animals who live primarily for survival and propagation. People who exist on that level aren't living; they are being lived. They are reacting, unaware of the unique endowments that lie dormant and undeveloped within.

Stephen Covey
To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.

Stephen Covey
Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.

Stephen Covey