Stephen Covey Quotes

The clock represents our commitments, appointments, schedules, goals, activities — what we do with, and how we manage our time.

The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others. It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.

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.

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

The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature. EZRA TAFT BENSON,

Leadership is communicating people’s worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.” Is that not also the essence of good teaching?

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.

I believe that there are parts to human nature that cannot be reached by either legislation or education, but require the power of God to deal with.

The core of any family is what is changeless, what is going to be there──shared vision and values.

"Inside-Out" means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self — with your paradigms, your character, and your motives

Search your own heart with all diligence for out of it flow the issues of life.

It’s not enough to dream. It’s not enough to try. It’s not enough to set goals or climb ladders. It’s not enough to value. The effort has to be based on practical realities that produce the result. Only then can we dream, set goals, and work to achieve them with confidence.

Most people see effectiveness from the golden egg paradigm: the more you produce, the more you do, the more effective you are. But as the story shows, true effectiveness is a function of two things: what is produced (the golden eggs) and the producing asset or capacity to produce (the goose). If you adopt a pattern of life that focuses on golden eggs and neglects the goose, you will soon be without the asset that produces golden eggs. On the other hand, if you only take care of the goose with no aim toward the golden eggs, you soon won’t have the wherewithal to feed yourself or the goose. Effectiveness lies in the balance — what I call the P/PC Balance. P stands for production of desired results, the golden eggs. PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs.

Educating the heartis the critical complement to educating the mind.

A tendency that’s run through your family for generations can stop with you. You’re a transition person – a link between past and future. And your own change can affect many, many lives downstream.