Stephen Covey - Principles Quotes

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Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships — marriages, families, and organizations of every kind — together.

Stephen Covey
It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.

Stephen Covey
In effective personal leadership, visualization and affirmation techniques emerge naturally out of a foundation of well thought through purposes and principles that become the center of a person's life.

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

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
Would you not agree that relationships are built on trust? Would you not also agree that most individuals think more in terms of "me-my wants, my needs, my rights? What would wisdom dictate - would it not direct us to focus on trust-building principles and sacrificing 'me' for 'we'?"

Stephen Covey
The principle of fasting is taught in almost all major world religions as a means of developing a higher level of self-mastery and self-control, and also a deeper awareness of how really dependent we are.

Stephen Covey
While values drive behaviors, principles govern consequences.

Stephen Covey
The personal power that comes from principle-centered living is the power of a self-aware, knowledgeable, proactive individual, unrestricted by the attitudes, behaviors, and actions of others or by many of the circumstances and environmental influences that limit other people.

Stephen Covey
People with a scarcity mentality tend to see everything in terms of win-lose. There is only so much; and if someone else has it, that means there will be less for me. The more principle-centered we become, the more we develop an abundance mentality, the more we are genuinely happy for the successes, well-being, achievements, recognition, and good fortune of other people. We believe their success adds to...rather than detracts from...our lives.

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

Stephen Covey
I believe that correct principles are natural laws, and that God, the Creator and Father of us all, is the source of them, and also the source of our conscience. I believe that to the degree people live by this inspired conscience, they will grow to fulfill their natures; to the degree that they do not, they will not rise above the animal plane.

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
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
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
Our problems and pain are universal and increasing, and the solutions to the problems are and always will be based upon universal, timeless, self-evident principles common to every enduring, prospering society throughout history.

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
If you focus on principles, you empower everyone who understands those principles to act without constant monitoring, evaluating, correcting, or controlling.

Stephen Covey
Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other.

Stephen Covey
If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication.

Stephen Covey
Everyone has values; even criminal gangs have values. Values govern people's behavior but principles govern the consequences of those behaviors.

Stephen Covey
The character ethic, which I believe to be the foundation of success, teaches that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.

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

Stephen Covey
There are principles that govern human effectiveness - natural laws in the human dimension that are just as real, just as unchanging and unarguably there as laws such as gravity are in the physical dimension.

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
Our behavior is governed by principles. Living in harmony with them brings positive consequences; violating them brings negative consequences.

Stephen Covey
Quality relationships are built on principles, especially the principle of trust.

Stephen Covey
Intrinsic security doesn't come from what other people think of us or how they treat us. It doesn't come from our circumstance or out position. It comes from within. It comes from accurate paradigms and correct principles deep in our own mind and heart. It comes from inside-out congruence, from living a life of integrity in which our daily habits reflect our deepest values.

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
We are product of neither nature nor nurture; we are a product of choice, because there is always a space between stimulus and response. As we wisely exercise our power to choose based on principles, the space will become larger.

Stephen Covey