Top 500 Stephen R. Covey Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “The best way to develop courage is to set a goal and achieve it, make a promise and keep it.”

— Stephen R. Covey

352. “The bottom line is, when people are crystal clear about the most important priorities of the organization and team they work with and prioritized their work around those top priorities, not only are they many times more productive, they discover they have the time they need to have a whole life.”

— Stephen R. Covey

353. “Whenever you experience stress of any kind, look into yourself and ask, In what way am I compromising my innermost values in this situation?”

— Stephen R. Covey

354. “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

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

— Stephen R. Covey

356. “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

357. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ARISTOTLE Our character, basically, is a composite of our habits. “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny,” the maxim goes.”

— Stephen R. Covey

358. “We tend to get what we expect – both from ourselves and from others. When we expect more, we tend to get more; when we expect less, we tend to get less.”

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

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360. “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

361. “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

362. “In the end, life teaches us what is important, and that is family.”

— Stephen R. Covey

363. “The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are.”

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

365. “Keeping a personal journal a daily in-depth analysis and evaluation of your experiences is a high-leverage activity that increases self-awareness and enhances all the endowments and the synergy among them.”

— Stephen R. Covey

366. “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

367. “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

368. “Patience is emotional diligence.”

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

370. “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

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

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

374. “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

375. “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

376. “Most learning is social, or what I call the cultural DNA. Everyone knows that word of mouth advertising is the best advertising. That’s social learning.”

— Stephen R. Covey

377. “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

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

— Stephen R. Covey

379. “People behave more on the basis of how they feel than how they think; unless there are good feelings between people, it is almost impossible to reason intelligently.”

— Stephen R. Covey

380. “The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don’t like to do,” he observed. “They don’t like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.”

— Stephen R. Covey

381. “How many on their deathbeds wished they’d spent more time at the office – or watching TV? The answer is, No one.”

— Stephen R. Covey

382. “Empathic listening is also risky. It takes a great deal of security to go into a deep listening experience because you open yourself up to be influenced. You become vulnerable. It’s a paradox, in a sense, because in order to have influence, you have to be influenced. That means you have to really understand.”

— Stephen R. Covey

383. “Most people think of leadership as a position and therefore don’t see themselves as leaders.”

— Stephen R. Covey

384. “If you don’t let a teacher know what level you are – by asking a question, or revealing your ignorance – you will not learn or grow.”

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

386. “If we overcome the pull and “get up and get at it,” we will have won a victory. We have kept our own resolve. We can then move to other things, for by small means great things are accomplished. Thus, even this one small step is also in another sense a giant leap.”

— Stephen R. Covey

387. “When our honor becomes greater than our moods, that is where transformation happens.”

— Stephen R. Covey

388. “If you say to one flower, ‘Grow,’ but you water another, the first one won’t grow.”

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

391. “Management is formal authority given from above. Leadership is moral authority given from below and all around.”

— Stephen R. Covey

392. “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

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

— Stephen R. Covey

394. “When the trust is high, you get the trust dividend. Investors invest in brands people trust. Consumers buy more from companies they trust, they spend more with companies they trust, they recommend companies they trust, and they give companies they trust the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong.”

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

396. “By centering our lives on correct principles and creating a balanced focus between doing and increasing our ability to do, we become empowered to the task of creating effective useful and peaceful lives.”

— Stephen R. Covey

397. “Don’t cheat people of their growth. Empower them to solve problems and generate ideas. Watch them grow!”

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

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

— Stephen R. Covey

400. “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