Stephen Covey Quotes

345 Sourced Quotes

Trust is the glue that holds everything together. It creates the environment in which all of the other elements — win-win stewardship agreements, self-directing individuals and teams, aligned structures and systems, and accountability — can flourish.

Stephen Covey
You can't be successful with other people if you haven't paid the price of success with yourself.

Stephen Covey
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.

Stephen Covey
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.

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

Stephen Covey
Principles always have natural consequences attached to them. There are positive consequences when we live in harmony with the principles. There are negative consequences when we ignore them. But because these principles apply to everyone, whether or not they are aware, this limitation is universal. And the more we know of correct principles, the greater is our personal freedom to act wisely.

Stephen Covey
The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.

Stephen Covey
To maintain the P/PC Balance, the balance between the golden egg (production) and the health and welfare of the goose (production capability) is often a difficult judgment call. But I suggest it is the very essence of effectiveness.

Stephen Covey
It takes humility to seek feedback. It takes wisdom to understand it, analyze it and appropriately act on it.

Stephen Covey
In our own lives, having a mind-set of expecting to win increases our odds of winning. It helps us get better results. And better results help us increase our credibility and self-confidence, which leads to more positive self-expectancy, and more winning - and the upward cycle continues. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Stephen Covey
When you have a challenge and the response is equal to the challenge, that's called 'success'. But once you have a new challenge, the old, once-successful response no longer works. That's why it is called a 'failure'.

Stephen Covey
If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so.

Stephen Covey
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.

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
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
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
An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success.

Stephen Covey
Most leaders would agree that they'd be better off having an average strategy with superb execution than a superb strategy with poor execution. Those who execute always have the upper hand.

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

Stephen Covey
There is so much we can do to render service, to make a difference in the world - no matter how large or small our circle of influence.

Stephen Covey