Stephen R. Covey Quotes (88) Spiritual Sayings
About the Author: Stephen Richards Covey (October 24, 1932 – July 16, 2012) was an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. His most popular book was The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. His other books include First Things First, Principle-Centered Leadership, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, The 8th Habit, and The Leader In Me — How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time. He was a professor at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University at the time of his death. See website for more info - https://www.stephencovey.com/
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“But until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“Start with the end in mind. ”
― Stephen R. Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“We are free to choose our actions, . . . but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“Strength lies in differences, not in similarities”
― Stephen R. Covey
“Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and
he will become as he can and should be.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“The way we see the problem is the problem.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“...to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“We see the world, not as it is, but as we are──or, as we are conditioned to see it.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
“Two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right. It's not logical; it's psychological.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control - myself.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
“Live, love, laugh, leave a legacy.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“It's not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic”
― Stephen R. Covey
“It is one thing to make a mistake, and quite another thing not to admit it. People will forgive mistakes, because mistakes are usually of the mind, mistakes of judgment. But people will not easily forgive the mistakes of the heart, the ill intention, the bad motives, the prideful justifying cover-up of the first mistake.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
“There are three constants in life... Change, Choice and Principles.”
― Stephen R. 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 R. Covey
“Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“You can't talk your way out of a problem you behaved your way into!”
― Stephen R. Covey
“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
“We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“Live out of your imagination, not your history.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“I teach people how to treat me by what I will allow.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“Habit is the intersection of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do), and desire (want to do).”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“At some time in your life, you probably had someone believe in you when you didn't believe in yourself.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“Words are like eggs dropped from great heights. You could no more call them back then ignore the mess they left when they fell.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
― Stephen R. 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 R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“Wisdom is the child of integrity—being integrated around principles. And integrity is the child of humility and courage. In fact, you could say that humility is the mother of all virtues because humility acknowledges that there are natural laws or principles that govern the universe. They are in charge. Pride teaches us that we are in charge. Humility teaches us to understand and live by principles, because they ultimately govern the consequences of our actions. If humility is the mother, courage is the father of wisdom. Because to truly live by these principles when they are contrary to social mores, norms and values takes enormous courage.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“People simply feel better about themselves when they’re good at something.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness
“Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, underline it. No involvement, no commitment.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“Independent will is our capacity to act. It gives us the power to transcend our paradigms, to swim upstream, to rewrite our scripts, to act based on principle rather than reacting based on emotion or circumstance.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“Courage isn't absenct of fear, it is the awareness that something else is important”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“As long as you think the problem is out there, that very thought is the problem”
― Stephen R. Covey
“To know and not to do is really not to know.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“I think the most significant work we'll do in our whole life, in our whole world is done within the four walls of our home.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“It comes from within.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“Through imagination, we can visualize the uncredited worlds of potential that lie within us.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“How you treat the one reveals how you
regard the many, because everyone is ultimately a one.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“Treat them all the same by treating them differently.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
“Begin each day with the blueprint of my deepest values FIRMLY in mind then when challenges come, make decisions BASED on those values.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“There's no better way to inform and expand you mind on a regular basis than to get into the habit of reading good literature.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“When air is charged with emotions, an attempt to teach is often perceived as a form of judgment and rejection.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“The core of any family is what is changeless, what is going to be there──shared vision and values.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“..people are working harder than ever, but because they lack clarity and vision, they aren’t getting very far. They, in essence, are pushing a rope...with all of their might.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness
“As you care less about what people think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“My behavior is a product of my own conscious choices based on principles, rather than a product of my conditions, based on feelings.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out”
― Stephen R. 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 R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“We must look at the lens through we see the world, as well as the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“If we do not teach our children, societ will. And they-and we-will live with the results.”
― Stephen R. Covey, 7 habits Family Collection
“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“If you want to have a more pleasant,cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, emphatic, consistent, loving parent.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“The only person I know, is the person I want to be”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“We not not our feelings. We are not our moods. We not even our thoughts.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“We can't live without eating, but we don't live to eat.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
“...people have character strength but they lack communication skills, and that undoubtedly affects the quality of relationships as well.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“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 R. Covey
“The undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions”
― Stephen R. Covey
“Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“But borrowing strength builds weakness.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“We're responsible for our own lives.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“To Retain those who are present, be loyal to those who are absent.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“We hear a lot about identity theft when someone takes your wallet and pretends to be you and uses your credit cards. But the more serious identity theft is to get swallowed up in other people's definition of you.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 3rd Alternative: Solving Life's Most Difficult Problems
“All the well-meaning advice in the world won't amount to a hill of beans if we're not even addressing the real problem.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“Being is seeing in the human dimension.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“We see the world, not as it is, but as we are -- or, as we are conditioned to see it. When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“If you organize your family life to spend even ten or fifteen minutes a morning reading something that connects you with these timeless principles, its almost guaranteed that you will make better choices during the day--in the family, on the job, in every dimension of life. Your thoughts will be higher. Your interactions will be more satisfying. You will have a greater perspective. You will increase that space between what happens to you and your response to it. You will be more connected to what really matters most.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families
“Each of us guard a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“Perhaps a sense of possessing needs to come to come before a sense of genuine sharing.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
“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 R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
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Keywords: Stephen R. Covey Quotes, Quotations, Sayings, Inspirational, Intuition, Wisdom, Motivational, Life, Journey, Awakening, Spiritual, affirmations, UK, South Africa,
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