Stephen Covey Quotes

"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

"Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships."

"The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities."

"Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change."

"A cardinal principle of Total Quality escapes too many managers: you cannot continuously improve interdependent systems and processes until you progressively perfect interdependent, interpersonal relationships."

"Strength lies in differences, not in similarities."

"There are three constants in life... change, choice and principles."

"Listen with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply."

"Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind you."

"Accountability breeds response-ability."

"When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That's when you can get more creative in solving problems."

"Live out of your imagination, not your history."

"Leadership is a choice, not a position."

"Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition - such as lifting weights - we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity."

"Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out."

"The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it."

"When you really listen to another person from their point of view, and reflect back to them that understanding, it's like giving them emotional oxygen."

"If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm."

"A mission statement is not something you write overnight... But fundamentally, your mission statement becomes your constitution, the solid expression of your vision and values. It becomes the criterion by which you measure everything else in your life."

"Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs."

"In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do."

"Seek first to understand, then to be understood."

"Between stimulus and response, there is a space where we choose our response."

"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."

"Moral authority comes from following universal and timeless principles like honesty, integrity, treating people with respect."

"You can't talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into."

"Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution."

"The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things."

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

"We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice."