Top 500 Stephen R. Covey Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “It is possible to be busy-very busy-without being very effective.”

— Stephen R. Covey

302. “True independence of character empowers us to act rather than be acted upon.”

— Stephen R. Covey

303. “Treat them all the same by treating them differently.”

— Stephen R. Covey

304. “Make specific appointments with yourself to work on goals, and treat an appointment with yourself as you’d treat an appointment with anybody else.”

— Stephen R. Covey

305. “See every problem as an opportunity to exercise creative energy.”

— Stephen R. Covey

306. “Most people define greatness through wealth and popularity and position in the corner office. But what I call everyday greatness comes from character and contribution.”

— Stephen R. Covey

307. “Link yourself to your potential, not to your past.”

— Stephen R. Covey

308. “You can retire from a job, but don’t ever retire from making extremely meaningful contributions in life.”

— Stephen R. Covey

309. “People who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary to get the job done.”

— Stephen R. Covey

310. “Over time, I have come to this simple definition of leadership: Leadership is getting results in a way that inspires trust.”

— Stephen R. Covey

311. “Remember that our reactions are a product of our perceptions, and our perceptions are a result of what is at the center of our life.”

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

313. “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

314. “When we say that leadership is a choice, it basically means you can choose the level of initiative you want to exercise in response to the question, ‘What is the best I can do under the given circumstances?’”

— Stephen R. Covey

315. “Look at the word responsibility – “response-ability” – the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.”

— Stephen R. Covey

316. “Will we act upon life, or will we merely be acted upon?”

— Stephen R. Covey

317. “The commitments we make to ourselves and to others, and our integrity to those commitments, is the essence and clearest manifestation of our proactivity.”

— Stephen R. Covey

318. “The fire inside people is like a match; the way to ignite that flame is initially through friction, then other matches are lit through warmth.”

— Stephen R. Covey

319. “In the words of Thoreau, “For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root.” We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow.”

— Stephen R. Covey

320. “Independent thinking alone is not suited to interdependent reality.”

— Stephen R. Covey

321. “If you don’t choose to do it in leadership time up front, you do it in crisis management time down the road.”

— Stephen R. Covey

322. “The character ethic, which I believe to be the foundation of success, teaches that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.”

— Stephen R. Covey

323. “Little kindness and courtesies are so important. In relationships, the little things are the big things.”

— Stephen R. Covey

324. “So often the problem is in the system, not in the people. If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow.”

— Stephen R. Covey

325. “It’s better to be trusted than to be liked.”

— Stephen R. Covey

326. “The reflection of the current social paradigm tells us we are largely determined by conditioning and conditions.”

— Stephen R. Covey

327. “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

328. “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.”

— Stephen R. Covey

329. “Keep in mind that you are always saying “no” to something. If it isn’t to the apparent and urgent things in your life, it is probably to the most fundamental, highly important things.”

— Stephen R. Covey

330. “Most people say their main fault is a lack of discipline. On deeper thought, I believe this is not the case. The basic problem is that their priorities have not become deeply planted in their hearts and minds.”

— Stephen R. Covey

331. “The principle of fasting is taught in almost all major world religions as a means of developing a higher level of self-mastery and self-control, and also a deeper awareness of how really dependent we are.”

— Stephen R. Covey

332. “You will never be able to truly step inside another person, to see the world as he sees it, until you develop the pure desire, the strength of personal character, and the positive Emotional Bank Account, as well as the empathetic listening skills to do it.”

— Stephen R. Covey

333. “The struggle comes when we sense a gap between the clock and the compass – when what we do doesn’t contribute to what is most important in our lives.”

— Stephen R. Covey

334. “You basically get what you reward. If you want to achieve the goals and reflect the values in your mission statement, then you need to align the reward system with these goals and values.”

— Stephen R. Covey

335. “The key to creating passion in your life is to find your unique talents, and your special role and purpose in the world.”

— Stephen R. Covey

336. “A thousand-mile journey begins with the first step” and can only be taken one step at a time.”

— Stephen R. Covey

337. “In effective personal leadership, visualization and affirmation techniques emerge naturally out of a foundation of well thought through purposes and principles that become the center of a person’s life.”

— Stephen R. Covey

338. “Principles don’t die. They aren’t here one day and gone the next. They can’t be destroyed by fire, earthquake or theft. Principles are deep, fundamental truths, classic truths.”

— Stephen R. Covey

339. “The only way we can handle change around us is to know what is changeless about ourselves.”

— Stephen R. Covey

340. “I am the creative force of my life.”

— Stephen R. Covey

341. “In our personal lives, if we do not develop our own self-awareness and become responsible for first creations, we empower other people and circumstances to shape our lives by default.”

— Stephen R. Covey

342. “If you want to get something done, give it to a busy man.”

— Stephen R. Covey

343. “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

344. “Above all, success in business requires two things: a winning competitive strategy, and superb organizational execution. Distrust is the enemy of both. I submit that while high trust won’t necessarily rescue a poor strategy, low trust will almost always derail a good one.”

— Stephen R. Covey

345. “You can’t be successful with other people if you haven’t paid the price of success with yourself.”

— Stephen R. Covey

346. “Communication is the most important single activity of man.”

— Stephen R. Covey

347. “The personal power that comes from principle-centered living is the power of a self-aware, knowledgeable, proactive individual, unrestricted by the attitudes, behaviors, and actions of others or by many of the circumstances and environmental influences that limit other people.”

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

349. “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

350. “Anyone can count the seeds of an apple. Who can count the apples in a seed?”

— Stephen R. Covey