Stephen Covey Quotes

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

No matter how long we’ve walked life’s pathway to mediocrity, we can always choose to switch paths. Always. It’s never too late. We can find our voice.

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

Often we are so busy with sawing that we forget to sharpen the saw..

God was at the center of your life, everything else would find its proper place.

Interdependence is a far more mature, more advanced concept. If I am physically interdependent, I am self-reliant and capable, but I also realize that you and I working together can accomplish far more than, even at my best, I could accomplish alone. If I am emotionally interdependent, I derive a great sense of worth within myself, but I also recognize the need for love, for giving, and for receiving love from others. If I am intellectually interdependent, I realize that I need the best thinking of other people to join with my own.

The Three Lives We all lead three lives: our public life, our private life, and our deep inner life. Our public life takes place in a community setting, where we interact with others. Our private life is away from the public — we may be alone, with a friend, or with family members. But our deep inner life is our most significant life. It is where our heart is. It’s where we have the capacity to explore our own motives, to examine our own thoughts and desires, and to analyze our problems and our needs. We can go into this deep private life — we could call it a secret life — even when we are in a public or a private setting. Our secret life is where we are able to tap into the power of the four human endowments: self-awareness, conscience, imagination, and independent will. When you are dealing with the development of a personal mission statement, you need to go into the deep inner or secret life, which influences the other two. It is the part of you where you decide the most fundamental issues of your life. As the psalmist put it: “Search your own heart with all diligence, for out of it flows the issues of your life.” It truly is a secret life. No one knows the thoughts and intents of your heart. You alone have that awareness, and you can step in on your own deep inner life; you can examine, explore, and change it. Many people, unless they are in pain because of something they care about that is not being fulfilled, will not go into their deep inner life at all. In a sense, they’re not living. They’re just being lived, publicly and privately.

Ironically, you’ll find that as you care less about what others think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves and their worlds, including their relationship with you. You’ll no longer build your emotional life on other people’s weaknesses. In addition, you’ll find it easier and more desirable to change because there is something — some core deep within — that is essentially changeless.

Give no answer to contentious arguments or irresponsible accusations. Let such things "fly out open windows" until they spend themselves.

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.

Empathy is not sympathy. A sympathy is a form of agreement. Empathy is not agreeing with someone; it is fully, deeply understanding that person, emotionally as well as intellectually.

But borrowing strength builds weakness.

It is character that communicates most eloquently...In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.

Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.

If you carefully consider what you wanted to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success.