Stephen Covey Quotes

220 Stephen Covey Quotes

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If the only vision we have of ourselves comes from the social mirror… our view of ourselves is like the reflection in the crazy mirror room at the carnival.
Stephen Covey

People who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves…
Stephen Covey

Keeping a commitment or a promise is a major deposit… breaking one is a major withdrawal.
Stephen Covey

We are more in need of a vision or destination and a compass and less in need of a road map.
Stephen Covey

The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals.
Stephen Covey

Effectively delegating to others is perhaps the single most powerful high leverage activity there is.
Stephen Covey

Satisfied needs do not motivate.
Stephen Covey

If two people have the same opinion, one is unnecessary.
Stephen Covey

It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.
Stephen Covey

Proactive people can carry their own weather with them.
Stephen Covey



The leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, ‘Wrong jungle!’ … Busy, efficient producers and managers often respond… ‘Shut up! We’re making progress!’
Stephen Covey

Effectiveness – often even survival – does not depend solely on how much effort we expend, but on whether or not the effort we expend is in the right jungle.
Stephen Covey

In relationships, the little things are the big things.
Stephen Covey

Integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present.
Stephen Covey

It is one thing to make a mistake, and quite another thing not to admit it.
Stephen Covey

What matters most is how we respond to what we experience in life.
Stephen Covey

Treat them all the same by treating them differently… respecting their differences.
Stephen Covey

Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.
Stephen Covey

Effective management without effective leadership is… like straightening deck chairs on the Titanic.
Stephen Covey

The most positive way I can influence my situation is to work on myself, on my being.
Stephen Covey



In choosing our response to circumstance, we powerfully affect our circumstance. When we change one part of the chemical formula, we change the nature of the results.
Stephen Covey

Sometimes the most proactive thing we can do is to be happy, just to genuinely smile.
Stephen Covey

Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.
Stephen Covey

We can’t go very far to change our seeing without simultaneously changing our being…
Stephen Covey

Our response to any mistake affects the quality of the next moment.
Stephen Covey

Certainly you can pick up that room better than a child, but the key is that you want to empower the child to do it.
Stephen Covey

Rebellion is a knot of the heart, not of the mind.
Stephen Covey

We are responsible for our own effectiveness, for our own happiness, and ultimately… for most of our circumstances.
Stephen Covey

Intrinsic security doesn’t come from what other people think of us or how they treat us… It comes from within.
Stephen Covey

It is said that wars are won in the general’s tent.
Stephen Covey



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

So often, in our quest to be more popular and to be part of the ‘in group’, we lose sight of things that are far more important.
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

Live out of your imagination, not your history.
Stephen Covey

The enemy of the ‘best’ is the ‘good’.
Stephen Covey

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

You have to leave the comfort zone of the base camp and confront an entirely new and unknown wilderness.
Stephen Covey

Creative experiences can be produced regularly… it requires enormous personal security and openness and a spirit of adventure.
Stephen Covey

Anything less than a conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.
Stephen Covey

Love is something you do…
Stephen Covey



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