200+ Best Stephen Covey Quotes of All Time

Here is an ultimate collection of the best Stephen Covey quotes of all time.

Stephen Covey was an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. He is the founder of Franklin Covey, a professional services company that helps organizations achieve results that require lasting changes in human behavior.

Stephen gained his popularity through his best-selling self-help and business books, particularly the highly influential The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic (1989) which sold more than 25 million copies in different countries.

Below are some famous Stephen Covey Quotes that will motivate you to reach your goals.

Best Stephen Covey Quotes

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

“When you have too many top priorities, you effectively have no top priorities.” – Stephen Covey

“Feedback often tells you more about the person who is giving it than about you.” – Stephen Covey

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

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

“I define discipline as the ability to make + keep promises and to honor commitments.” – Stephen Covey

“Each of us guard a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside.” – Stephen Covey

“Life is a mission, not a career.” – Stephen Covey

“It’s like the more you know the more you know you don’t know.” – Stephen Covey

“It’s better to be trusted than to be liked.” – Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey Motivational Quotes

“My behavior is a product of my own conscious choices based on principles, rather than a product of my conditions, based on feelings.” – Stephen Covey

“How does humility manifest itself in leadership and in life? A humble person is more concerned about what is right than about being right, about acting on good ideas than having the ideas, about embracing new truth than defending outdated position, about building the team than exalting self, about recognizing contribution than being recognized for making it.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“We are limited but we can push back the borders of our limitations.” – Stephen Covey

“The reality is that everybody makes mistakes. The issue isn’t whether you will make them, it’s what you will do about them. It’s whether you will choose the path of humility and courage or the path of ego and pride.” – Stephen Covey

“Response-ability is the ABILITY to choose our response to any circumstance or condition.” – Stephen Covey

“Unless you’re continually improving your skills, you’re quickly becoming irrelevant.” – Stephen Covey

“If you’re proactive, you don’t have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective expanding experiences. You can consciously create your own.” – Stephen Covey

“Affirm people. Affirm your children. Believe in them, not in what you see but in what you don’t see – their potential.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

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

“In our own lives, having a mind-set of expecting to win increases our odds of winning. It helps us get better results. And better results help us increase our credibility and self-confidence, which leads to more positive self-expectancy, and more winning – and the upward cycle continues. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“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 Covey

“Would you not agree that relationships are built on trust? Would you not also agree that most individuals think more in terms of “me-my wants, my needs, my rights? What would wisdom dictate – would it not direct us to focus on trust-building principles and sacrificing ‘me’ for ‘we’?” – Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey Inspirational Quotes

“The way we see the problem is the problem.” – Stephen Covey

“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.” – Stephen Covey

“Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.” – Stephen Covey

“Trust is the highest form of human motivation.” – Stephen Covey

“To learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.” – Stephen Covey

“As long as you think the problem is out there, that very thought is the problem.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“The greatest risk is the risk of riskless living.” – Stephen Covey

“People are your most valuable asset. Only people can be made to appreciate value.” – Stephen Covey

“Want to improve your relationships? See love as a verb rather than as a feeling?” – Stephen Covey

“If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to keep getting what we’re getting.” – Stephen Covey

“Effective people stay out of Quadrants III and IV because, urgent or not, they aren’t important. They also shrink Quadrant I down to size by spending more time in Quadrant II…Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management.” – Stephen Covey

“While you can think in terms of efficiency in dealing with time, a principle-centered person thinks in terms of effectiveness in dealing with people.” – Stephen Covey

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

“Accountability breeds response-ability.” – Stephen Covey

“The ability to manage well doesn’t make much difference if you’re not even in the right jungle.” – Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey Quotes on Leadership

“Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“What you do has a far greater impact than what you say.” – Stephen Covey

“A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It’s the testing point of our character and competence.” – Stephen Covey

“Personal leadership is the process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with them.” – Stephen Covey

“Management works in the system; leadership works on the system.” – Stephen Covey

“The real beginning of influence comes as others sense you are being influenced by them – when they feel understood by you – that you have listened deeply and sincerely, and that you are open.” – Stephen Covey

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

“To focus on technique is like cramming your way through school. You sometimes get by, perhaps even get good grades, but if you don’t pay the price day in and day out, you’ll never achieve true mastery of the subjects you study or develop an educated mind.” – Stephen Covey

“Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, underline it. No involvement, no commitment.” – Stephen Covey

“Involve people in the problem and work out the solution together.” – Stephen Covey

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

“Effective leadership is the only competitive advantage that will endure. That’s because leadership has two sides- what a person’s character and what a person does- competence.” – Stephen Covey

“Trust is the glue in relationships and organizations.” – Stephen Covey

“Only 20 percent of employees working in large organizations surveyed feel their strengths are in play every day. Thus, eight out of ten employees surveyed feel somewhat miscast in their role.” – Stephen Covey

“Results matter! They matter to your credibility.” – Stephen Covey

“In many situations involving service recovery – the problem itself became the catalyst for the creation of even greater trust as the companies took the issues head-on and worked through the difficult problem in a way that restored confidence.” – Stephen Covey

“You can buy a person’s hand, but you can’t buy their heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is. You can buy his back, but you can’t buy his brain. That’s where his creativity is, his ingenuity, his resourcefulness.” – Stephen Covey

“When trust is high, the dividend you receive is like a performance multiplier, elevating and improving every dimension of your organization and your life…. In a company, high trust materially improves communication, collaboration, execution, innovation, strategy, engagement, partnering, and relationships with all stakeholders.” – Stephen Covey

“In order to have influence, you have to be influenced.” – Stephen Covey

“If you are an effective manager of yourself, your discipline comes from within; it is a function of your independent will.” – Stephen Covey

“Leadership is communicating people’s worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it themselves.” – Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey Quotes on Trust & Change

“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” – Stephen Covey

“There are three constants in life… change, choice and principles.” – Stephen Covey

“When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.” – Stephen Covey

“When it comes to developing character strength, inner security and unique personal and interpersonal talents and skills in a child, no institution can or ever will compare with, or effectively substitute for, the home’s potential for positive influence.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.” – Stephen Covey

“Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.” – Stephen Covey

“If I make deposits into an Emotional Bank Account with you through courtesy, kindness, honesty, and keeping my commitments to you, I build up a reserve. Your trust toward me becomes higher, and I can call upon that trust many times if I need to. I can even make mistakes and that trust level, that emotional reserve, will compensate for it. My communication may not be clear, but you’ll get my meaning anyway. You won’t make me “an offender for a word.” When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.” – Stephen Covey

“A mission statement is not something you write overnight… But fundamentally, your mission statement becomes your constitution, the solid expression of your vision and values. It becomes the criterion by which you measure everything else in your life.” – Stephen Covey

“If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm.” – Stephen Covey

“Management is efficient in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.” – Stephen Covey

“The bottom line is, when people are crystal clear about the most important priorities of the organization and team they work with and prioritize 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 Covey

“Stop setting goals. Goals are pure fantasy unless you have a specific plan to achieve them.” – Stephen Covey

“Wisdom is the child of integrity—being integrated around principles. And integrity is the child of humility and courage. In fact, you could say that humility is the mother of all virtues because humility acknowledges that there are natural laws or principles that govern the universe. They are in charge. Pride teaches us that we are in charge. Humility teaches us to understand and live by principles, because they ultimately govern the consequences of our actions. If humility is the mother, courage is the father of wisdom. Because to truly live by these principles when they are contrary to social mores, norms and values takes enormous courage.” – Stephen Covey

“The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it.” – Stephen Covey

“Synergy is better than my way or your way. It’s our way.” – Stephen Covey

“The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things.” – Stephen Covey

“The deepest desire of the human spirit is to be acknowledged.” – Stephen Covey

Moral authority comes from following universal and timeless principles like honesty, integrity, “treating people with respect.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“Inevitably, anytime we are too vulnerable we feel the need to protect ourselves from further wounds. So we resort to sarcasm, cutting humor, criticism — anything that will keep from exposing the tenderness within. Each partner tends to wait on the initiative of the other for love, only to be disappointed but also confirmed as to the rightness of the accusations made.” – Stephen Covey

“Every human has four endowments – self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.” – Stephen Covey

“Listen with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply.” – Stephen Covey

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

“One day, naked and alone in a small room, he began to become aware of what he later called “the last of the human freedoms”—the freedom his Nazi captors could not take away. They could control his entire environment, they could do what they wanted to his body, but Viktor Frankl himself was a self-aware being who could look as an observer at his very involvement. His basic identity was intact. He could decide within himself how all of this was going to affect him. Between what happened to him, or the stimulus, and his response to it, was his freedom or power to choose that response.” – Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey Quotes on Teamwork

“Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.” – Stephen Covey

“Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.” – Stephen Covey

“Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.” – Stephen Covey

“True greatness will be achieved through the abundant mind that works selflessly – with mutual respect, for mutual benefit.” – Stephen Covey

“If you put good people in bad systems you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“Don’t get buried in the thick of thin things.” – Stephen Covey

“Technology and tools are useful and powerful when they are your servant and not your master.” – Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey Quotes on Character

“The most effective way I know to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement or philosophy or creed. It focused on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based.” – Stephen Covey

“Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconscious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.” – Stephen Covey

“Opposition is a natural part of life. Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.” – Stephen Covey

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

“People have character strength but they lack communication skills, and that undoubtedly affects the quality of relationships as well.” – Stephen Covey

“It’s easy to say ”no!” when there’s a deeper ”yes!” burning inside.” – Stephen Covey

“Trust is a function of two things: character and competence. Character includes your integrity, your motive and your intent with people. Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, and your track record. Both are vital.” – Stephen Covey

“Public behavior is merely private character writ large.” – Stephen Covey

“It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one’s heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.” – Stephen Covey

“We develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and obstacles.” – Stephen Covey

“As you live your values, your sense of identity, integrity, control, and inner-directedness will infuse you with both exhilaration and peace. You will define yourself from within, rather than by people’s opinions or by comparisons to others.” – Stephen Covey

“The ‘Inside-Out’ approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness 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. The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves recedes 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.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“Our character is basically a composite of our habits.” – Stephen Covey

“If I try to use human influence strategies and tactics of how to get other people to do what I want, to work better, to be more motivated, to like me and each other-while my character is fundamentally flawed, marked by duplicity and insincerity-then, in the long run, I cannot be successful. My duplicity will breed distrust, and everything I do-even using so-called good human relations techniques-will be perceived as manipulative.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“Character grows in the soil of experience with the fertilization of example, the moisture of ambition, and the sunshine of satisfaction. Characters cannot be purchased, bargained for, inherited, rented or imported from afar. It must be home-grown. Purely intellectual development without commensurate internal character development makes as much sense as putting a high-powered sports car in the hands of a teenager who is high on drugs. Yet all too often in the academic world, that’s exactly what we do by not focusing on the character development of young people.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“My temptation is emotional, and resisting will further my needed weight loss and strengthen my character. Furthermore, nothing tastes as good as thin feels.” – Stephen Covey

“You may be good, but what are you good for? You’ve got to be good for something. You’ve got to be about some project, some task that requires you to be humble and obedient to the universal principles of service. You’ve got to live a life of complete and total integrity in order to give this kind of service. This integrity enables you to love other people unconditionally, to be courageous and kind at the same time, because you have integratedness inside your own soul.” – Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey Quotes on Success

“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.” – Stephen Covey

“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.” – Stephen Covey

“Be sure that, as you scramble up the ladder of success, it is leaning against the right building.” – Stephen Covey

“Effective people are not problem-minded; they’re opportunity minded. They feed opportunities and starve problems.” – Stephen Covey

“Begin with the end in mind.” – Stephen Covey

“Private victories precede public victories.” – Stephen Covey

“Beginners are many; finishers are few.” – Stephen Covey

“An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success.” – Stephen Covey

“Link yourself to your potential, not to your past.” – Stephen Covey

“Actually I did not invent the seven habits, they are universal principles and most of what I wrote about is just common sense. I am embarrassed when people talk about the Covey Habits, and dislike the idea of being some sort of guru.” – Stephen Covey

“People and organizations don’t grow much without delegation and completed staff work because they are confined to the capacities of the boss and reflect both personal strengths and weaknesses.” – Stephen Covey

“Everyone chooses one of two roads in life – the old and the young, the rich and the poor, men and women alike. One is the broad, well-traveled road to mediocrity, the other road to greatness and meaning.” – Stephen Covey

“It’s a fact that more people watch television and get their information that way than read books. I find new technology and new ways of communication very exciting and would like to do more in this field.” – Stephen Covey

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” – Stephen Covey

“Live out of your imagination, not your history.” – Stephen Covey

“Start with the end in mind. ” – Stephen Covey

“The main thing is to keep the main thing.” – Stephen Covey

“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.” – Stephen Covey

“You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage — pleasantly, smilingly, unapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.”” – Stephen Covey

“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” – Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey Quotes on Time Management

“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” – Stephen Covey

“How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most.”

“The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.” – Stephen Covey

“The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“We may be very busy, we may be very ‘efficient’, but we will also be truly ‘effective’ only when we begin with the end in mind.” – Stephen Covey

“The environment you fashion out of your thoughts, your beliefs, your ideals, your philosophy is the only climate you will ever live in. The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.” – Stephen Covey

“Our struggle to put first things first can be characterized by the contrast between two powerful tools that direct us: the clock and the compass. The clock represents our commitments, appointments, schedules, goals, activities – what we do with, and how we manage our time. The compass represents our vision, values, principles, mission, conscience, direction – what we feel is important and how we lead our lives. In an effort to close the gap between the clock and the compass in our lives, many of us turn to the field of “time management.” – Stephen Covey

“Time management is a misnomer, the challenge is to manage ourselves.” – Stephen Covey

“Doing more things faster is no substitute for doing the right things.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“Where you are headed is more important than how fast you are going. Rather than always focusing on what’s urgent, learn to focus on what is really important.” – Stephen Covey

“The essence of the best thinking in the area of time management (practice planning) can be captured in a single phrase: Organize and execute around priorities.” – Stephen Covey

“As you begin to think more in terms of importance, you begin to see time differently.” – Stephen Covey

“’Efficient’ scheduling and control of time are often counterproductive. The efficiency focus creates expectations that clash with the opportunities to develop rich relationships, to meet human needs, and to enjoy spontaneous moments on a daily basis.” – Stephen Covey

“Make time for planning: Wars are won in the general’s tent.” – Stephen Covey

“If you organize your family life to spend even ten or fifteen minutes a morning reading something that connects you with these timeless principles, it’s 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.” – Stephen Covey

“It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy – very busy – without being very effective.” – Stephen Covey

“Priority is a function of context.” – Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey Quotes on Integrity

“One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present.” – Stephen Covey

“But until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,” that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.” – Stephen Covey

“I believe that a life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth. I do not agree with the popular success literature that says that self-esteem is primarily a matter of mind set, of attitude-that you can psych yourself into peace of mind. Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.” – Stephen Covey

“Integrity is conforming reality to our words – in other words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations.” – Stephen Covey

“Improve relationships with others by assuming that they can hear everything you say about them.” – Stephen Covey

“Humility is the mother of all virtues, courage the father, integrity of the child and wisdom of the grandchild.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“Intrinsic security doesn’t come from what other people think of us or how they treat us. It doesn’t come from our circumstance or our position. It comes from within. It comes from accurate paradigms and correct principles deep in our own mind and heart. It comes from inside-out congruence, from living a life of integrity in which our daily habits reflect our deepest values.” – Stephen Covey

“Integrity in the Moment of Choice: Quality of life depends on what happens in the space between stimulus and response.” – Stephen Covey

“By behaving in ways that build trust with one, you build trust with many.” – Stephen Covey

“As we make and keep commitments, even small commitments, we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us the awareness of self-control and the courage and strength to accept more of the responsibility for our own lives. By making and keeping promises to ourselves and others, little by little, our honor becomes greater than our moods.” – Stephen Covey

“Develop all four intelligences. PQ (physical intelligence) which represents 70 trillion cells that fight disease and digest your breakfast. IQ (intellectual intelligence) EQ (emotional intelligence) the sensing and wisdom of the heart – – and SQ (spiritual intelligence) having to do with meaning, purpose and integrity around your selected value system and your believed source. When combined, they change the world for good.” – Stephen Covey

“The heart and soul of loving yourself is integrity and the peace of conscience it inspires.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“I’m convinced that we can write and live our own scripts more than most people will acknowledge. I also know the price that must be paid. It’s a real struggle to do it. It requires visualization and affirmation. It involves living a life of integrity, starting with making and keeping promises, until the whole human personality the senses, the thinking, the feeling, and the intuition are ultimately integrated and harmonized.” – Stephen Covey

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

“To me, the essence of keeping the soul nourished is obedience to one’s conscience. I don’t think that the soul can be nourished unless people have a strong sense of conscience that they have educated and developed and soaked in the universal and timeless principles of integrity and service. This way, the individual’s soul becomes part of the universal soul of service, contribution, and making a difference.” – Stephen Covey

“You are a disciple, a follower, of your own deep values and their source. And you have the will, the integrity, to subordinate your feelings, your impulses, your moods to those values.” – Stephen Covey

“The key to acting with integrity is to simply stop playing the game.” – Stephen Covey

“A life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“Our capacity for production and enjoyment is a function, in the last analysis, of our character, our integrity.” – Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey Quotes about Family

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

“When parents see their children’s problems as opportunities to build the relationship instead of as negative, burdensome irritations, it totally changes the nature of parent-child interaction. Parents become more willing, even excited, about deeply understanding and helping their children. This paradigm is powerful in business as well.” – Stephen Covey

“Role modeling is the most basic responsibility of parents. Parents are handing life’s scripts to their children, scripts that in all likelihood will be acted out for the rest of the children’s lives.” – Stephen Covey

“Interdependence is a higher value than independence.” – Stephen Covey

“As a principle-centered person you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act on you, and evaluate the options. Looking at the balanced whole-the work needs, the family needs, the other needs that may be involved, and the possible implications of the various alternatives – you’ll try to come up with the best solution taking all factors into consideration. We are limited but we can push back the borders of our limitations.” – Stephen Covey

“I believe that correct principles are natural laws, and that God, the Creator and Father of us all, is the source of them, and also the source of our conscience. I believe that to the degree people live by this inspired conscience, they will grow to fulfill their natures; to the degree that they do not, they will not rise above the animal plane.” – Stephen Covey

“Humility is the mother of all virtues: the humble in spirit progress and are blessed because they willingly submit to higher powers and try to live in harmony with natural laws and universal principles. Courage is the father of all virtues; we need great courage to lead our lives by correct principles and to have integrity in the moment of choice.” – Stephen Covey

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

“Humility is the mother of all virtues. Humility says we are not in control, principles are in control, therefore we submit ourselves to principles. Pride says that we are in control, and since our values govern our behavior, we can simply do life our way.” – Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey Quotes on Love and Relationship

“Love is a verb. Love – the feeling – is the fruit of love, the verb or our loving actions. So I love her.” – Stephen Covey

“Live, love, laugh, leave a legacy.” – Stephen Covey

“When two people in a marriage are more concerned about getting the golden eggs, the benefits, than they are in preserving the relationship that makes them possible, they often become insensitive and inconsiderate, neglecting the little kindnesses and courtesies so important to a deep relationship. They begin to use control levers to manipulate each other, to focus on their own needs, to justify their own position and look for evidence to show the wrongness of the other person. The love, the richness, the softness and spontaneity begin to deteriorate.” – Stephen Covey

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

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

“Our greatest joy and our greatest pain comes in our relationships with others.” – Stephen Covey

“The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions come from superficial human relations techniques (the Personality Ethic) rather than from our own inner core (the Character Ethic), others will sense that duplicity. We simply won’t be able to create and sustain the foundation necessary for effective interdependence.” – Stephen Covey

“The place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our circle of influence, our own character.” – Stephen Covey

“One of the best ways to educate our hearts is to look at our interaction with other people, because our relationships with others are fundamentally a reflection of our relationship with ourselves.” – Stephen Covey

“Quality relationships are built on principles, especially the principle of trust.” – Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey Quotes about Life

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” – Stephen Covey

“We judge ourselves by our intentions. And others by their actions.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“A long, healthy, and happy life is the result of making contributions, of having meaningful projects that are personally exciting and contribute to and bless the lives of others.” – Stephen Covey

“If you don’t have confidence in the diagnosis, you won’t have confidence in the prescription.” – Stephen Covey

“Find your voice, and inspire others to find theirs. Don’t ignore that longing to make a difference.” – Stephen Covey

“Vital to quality of life is the ability to work together, learn from each other, and help each other grow.” – Stephen Covey

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

“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 Covey

“He who has a why can deal with any what or how.” – Stephen Covey

“In the absence of wake-up calls, many of us never really confront the critical issues of life.” – Stephen Covey

Famous Stephen Covey Quotes

“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 Covey

“I know it is possible not only to restore trust but to actually enhance it. The difficult things that we got through with the important people in our lives can become fertile ground for the growth of enduring trust – trust that is actually stronger because it’s been tested and proved through challenge.” – Stephen Covey

“In my own experience, both personally and professionally, I’ve learned that you don’t wait to confront reality. It doesn’t get easier. It doesn’t get better. And, in some cases, if you don’t get the relevant information from people and act quickly, you start losing options. You’re into damage control.” – Stephen Covey

“Being humble doesn’t mean being weak, reticent, or self-effacing. It means recognizing principle and putting it ahead of self. It means standing firmly for principle, even in the fact of opposition.” – Stephen Covey

“The greatest and most inspiring mountain climbing achievements in history are not so much stories of individual achievement, but are stories of the extraordinary power of a unified, talented, prepared team that stays loyally committed to one another and to their shared vision to the end.” – Stephen Covey

“The key to the many is often the one; it is how you regard and talk about the one in that one’s absence or presence that communicates to the many how you would regard and talk about them in their presence or absence.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

“Unless people feel that they are accepted and that they have a right to express their feelings without fear of embarrassment or ridicule, all they will do is react and rebel and struggle for their identity.” – Stephen Covey

“The key to the 99 is the one. Or, put another way, the key to the group is the one individual. Think about the one, talk to the one, regard the one, serve the one. If you are sincere and constant, you will discover that gradually your influence with the many will be magnified.” – Stephen Covey

“Most leaders would agree that they’d be better off having an average strategy with superb execution than a superb strategy with poor execution. Those who execute always have the upper hand.” – Stephen Covey

“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 Covey

Stephen Covey Quotes – FAQs

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