Top 500 Stephen R. Covey Quotes (2023 Update)
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201. “Your economic security does not lie in your job; it lies in your own power to produce – to think, to learn, to create, to adapt. That’s true financial independence. It’s not having wealth; it’s having the power to produce wealth.”

— Stephen R. Covey

202. “Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.”

— Stephen R. Covey

203. “The greatest thing you can do for your children is love your spouse.”

— Stephen R. Covey

204. “Courage isn’t absenct of fear, it is the awareness that something else is important.”

— Stephen R. Covey

205. “Technology and tools are useful and powerful when they are your servant and not your master.”

— Stephen R. Covey

206. “Don’t get buried in the thick of thin things.”

— Stephen R. Covey

207. “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 R. Covey

208. “An abundance mentality springs from internal security, not from external rankings, comparisons, opinions, possessions, or associations.”

— Stephen R. Covey

209. “Instead, I have an abundance mentality: When people are genuinely happy at the successes of others, the pie gets larger.”

— Stephen R. Covey

210. “Spiritual Intelligence represents our drive for meaning and connection with the infinite.”

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

212. “There are certain things that are fundamental to human fulfillment. The essence of these needs is captured in the phrase ‘to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy.’ The need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution.”

— Stephen R. Covey

213. “We’re often so busy cutting through the undergrowth we don’t even realise we’re in the wrong jungle.”

— Stephen R. Covey

214. “Belief is another word for paradigm. It’s a synonymous. Your belief of the way things are. Values are the way things should be, it’s a paradigm of the way things should be. Beliefs are the paradigms of the way things are.”

— Stephen R. Covey

215. “The key to motivation is motive. It’s the why. It’s the deeper yes! burning inside that makes it easier to say no to the less important.”

— Stephen R. Covey

216. “The first principle of ethical power is Purpose. By purpose, I don’t mean your objective or intention-something toward which you are always striving. Purpose is something bigger. It is the picture you have of yourself-the kind of person you want to be or the kind of life you want to lead.”

— Stephen R. Covey

217. “There is so much we can do to render service, to make a difference in the world – no matter how large or small our circle of influence.”

— Stephen R. Covey

218. “Highly effective people tend to be proactive. They decide to find a better job or to have better health, rather than of responding to whatever curves life throws at them.”

— Stephen R. Covey

219. “I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a ‘transformer’ in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader.”

— Stephen R. Covey

220. “If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character.”

— Stephen R. Covey

221. “I am fortunate to have a very helpful team that enables me to spend time doing things that are important but not necessarily urgent. People who have no such team need to also make these larger decisions so that they can cheerfully say No to that which is urgent but not important.”

— Stephen R. Covey

222. “When we pick up one end of the stick, we pick up the other.”

— Stephen R. Covey

223. “The challenge of work-life balance is without question one of the most significant struggles faced by modern man.”

— Stephen R. Covey

224. “Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.”

— Stephen R. Covey

225. “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

226. “Doing more things faster is no substitute for doing the right things.”

— Stephen R. Covey

227. “The role of the leader is to foster mutual respect and build a complementary team where each strength is made productive and each weakness irrelevant.”

— Stephen R. Covey

228. “By centering our lives on timeless, unchanging principles, we create a fundamental paradigm of effective living. It is the center that puts all other centers in perspective.”

— Stephen R. Covey

229. “Doing the right things for the right reason in the right way is the key to Quality of Life!”

— Stephen R. Covey

230. “You have two ears and one mouth. Use them accordingly.”

— Stephen R. Covey

231. “Retire from your job but never from meaningful projects. If you want to live a long life, you need eustress, that is, a deep sense of meaning and of contribution to worthy projects and causes, particularly, your intergenerational family.”

— Stephen R. Covey

232. “If we can’t make and keep commitments to ourselves as well as to others, our commitments become meaningless.”

— Stephen R. Covey

233. “Creating a warm, caring, supportive, encouraging environment is probably the most important thing you can do for your family.”

— Stephen R. Covey

234. “People and their managers are working so hard to be sure things are done right, that they have hardly have time to decide if they are doing the right things.”

— Stephen R. Covey

235. “When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air.”

— Stephen R. Covey

236. “A life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth.”

— Stephen R. Covey

237. “Consequences are governed by principles, and behavior is governed by values; therefore, value principles!”

— Stephen R. Covey

238. “Always surround yourself with people who are even more talented and competent than you.”

— Stephen R. Covey

239. “The more deeply you understand other people, the more you will appreciate them, the more reverent you will feel about them. To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.”

— Stephen R. Covey

240. “Synergy is the highest activity of life; it creates new untapped alternatives; it values and exploits the mental, emotional, and psychological differences between people.”

— Stephen R. Covey

241. “If we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms.”

— Stephen R. Covey

242. “Priority is a function of context.”

— Stephen R. Covey

243. “Anything less then a conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.”

— Stephen R. Covey

244. “You can say you love someone – but unless you demonstrate that love through your actions, your words become meaningless.”

— Stephen R. Covey

245. “It’s not what people do to us that hurts us. In the most fundamental sense, it is our chosen response to what they do to us that hurts us.”

— Stephen R. Covey

246. “Perhaps the most important vision of all is develop a sense of self, a sense of your own destiny, a sense of unique mission and role in life.”

— Stephen R. Covey

247. “Private Victory precedes Public Victory. Algebra comes before calculus.”

— Stephen R. Covey

248. “Principles are the territory. Values are maps.”

— Stephen R. Covey

249. “Effective interdependence can only be built on true independence.”

— Stephen R. Covey

250. “Internal victories precede external victories.”

— Stephen R. Covey