Top 500 Stephen R. Covey Quotes (2024 Update)
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351. “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

352. “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

353. “Patience is emotional diligence.”

— Stephen R. Covey

354. “By behaving in ways that build trust with one, you build trust with many.”

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

356. “Only as we keep an open communication with our deep inner life will we have the wisdom to make effective choices.”

— Stephen R. Covey

357. “Love – the feeling – is a fruit of love, the verb.”

— Stephen R. Covey

358. “When we value correct principles, we have truth – a knowledge of things as they are.”

— Stephen R. Covey

359. “Success in one role can’t justify failure in another.”

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

361. “Conscience connects us with the wisdom of the ages and the wisdom of the heart.”

— Stephen R. Covey

362. “We’re constantly making choices about the way we spend our time. The issue is not between the good and the bad, but between the good and the best. So often, the enemy of the best is the good.”

— Stephen R. Covey

363. “In the long run, you can never accomplish a worthy end with an unworthy means.”

— Stephen R. Covey

364. “Trust is the glue in relationships and organizations.”

— Stephen R. Covey

365. “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

366. “He who has a why can deal with any what or how.”

— Stephen R. Covey

367. “The universal elements are integrity, vision, discipline, passion, governed by conscience. Conscience has been educated through studying and pondering the universal, timeless principles of all six major world religions.”

— Stephen R. Covey

368. “Despite all our gains in technology, product innovation and world markets, most people are not thriving in the organizations they work for.”

— Stephen R. Covey

369. “Principle-centered people are constantly educated by their experiences.”

— Stephen R. Covey

370. “It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one’s heart rather than out of pity.”

— Stephen R. Covey

371. “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.”

— Stephen R. Covey

372. “To set and work toward any goal is an act of courage.”

— Stephen R. Covey

373. “Security represents your sense of worth, your identity, your emotional anchorage, your self-esteem, your basic personal strength or lack of it.”

— Stephen R. Covey

374. “The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty. And that can become a vicious, downward cycle. Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too.”

— Stephen R. Covey

375. “What we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do. There are people we trust because we know their character. Whether they’re eloquent or not, whether they have human-relations techniques or not, we trust them and work with them.”

— Stephen R. Covey

376. “If you don’t know yourself, if you don’t control yourself, if you don’t have mastery over yourself, it’s very hard to like yourself, except in some short-term, psych-up, superficial way.”

— Stephen R. Covey

377. “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

378. “Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.”

— Stephen R. Covey

379. “We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions.”

— Stephen R. Covey

380. “Sometimes poor behavior is simply bad execution of good intent.”

— Stephen R. Covey

381. “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

382. “In a very real sense, there are only two roles in organisations: customers and suppliers. Everybody functions simultaneously in both roles, whether inside or outside the organisation the essence of good business, therefore, is the quality of the relationship between customer and supplier.”

— Stephen R. Covey

383. “You can’t have the fruits without the roots. It’s the principle of sequencing: Private Victories proceed Public Victories. Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships with others.”

— Stephen R. Covey

384. “You can buy a person’s hands but you can’t buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is.”

— Stephen R. Covey

385. “It’s not that we ignore our weaknesses; rather, we make our weaknesses irrelevant by working effectively with others so that we compensate for our weaknesses through their strengths and they compensate for their weaknesses through our strengths.”

— Stephen R. Covey

386. “Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential.”

— Stephen R. Covey

387. “A moment of choice is a moment of truth.”

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

389. “When you make a commitment to yourself, do so with the clear understanding that you’re pledging your integrity.”

— Stephen R. Covey

390. “Whether you’re on a sports team, in an office or a member of a family, if you can’t trust one another there’s going to be trouble.”

— Stephen R. Covey

391. “Strategy is important, but trust is the hidden variable. On paper you can have clarity around your objectives, but in a low-trust environment, your strategy won’t be executed.”

— Stephen R. Covey

392. “We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.”

— Stephen R. Covey

393. “Prepare your mind and heart before you prepare your speech. What we say may be less important than how we say it.”

— Stephen R. Covey

394. “People can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them.”

— Stephen R. Covey

395. “Trust is a function of both character and competence. Of course you can’t trust someone who lacks integrity, but if someone is honest but they can’t perform, you’re not going to trust them either. You won’t trust them to get the job done.”

— Stephen R. Covey

396. “We can never really change someone; people must change themselves.”

— Stephen R. Covey

397. “The best way to develop courage is to set a goal and achieve it, make a promise and keep it.”

— Stephen R. Covey

398. “We must not let the actions or words of others determine our responses. Magnanimous people make the choice to respond to the indignities of others based upon their own principles and their own value system rather than their moods or anger.”

— Stephen R. Covey

399. “To blame and accuse other people, is to choose to empower them, to control us.”

— Stephen R. Covey

400. “Every exaggeration of the truth once detected by others destroys our credibility and makes all that we do and say suspect.”

— Stephen R. Covey