Stephen Covey Motivational Quotations

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

I define discipline as the ability to make + keep promises and to honor commitments.

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.

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.

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'?"

If you say to one flower, 'Grow,' but you water another, the first one won't grow.

When you have too many top priorities, you effectively have no top priorities.

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.

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.

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

Feedback often tells you more about the person who is giving it than about you.

You can say you love someone - but unless you demonstrate that love through your actions, your words become meaningless.

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.

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.

Being humble does not 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.

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.

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.

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.

We judge ourselves by our intentions. And others by their actions.

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

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.

Each of us guard a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside.

The way we see the problem is the problem.

It's better to be trusted than to be liked.

As long as you think the problem is out there, that very thought is the problem

Response-ability is the ABILITY to choose our response to any circumstance or condition.

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

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.

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.

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, 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.

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.

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.

We are limited but we can push back the borders of our limitations

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.

Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.

My behavior is a product of my own conscious choices based on principles, rather than a product of my conditions, based on feelings.

Affirm people. Affirm your children. Believe in them, not in what you see but in what you don't see - their potential.

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.

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.

It's like the more you know the more you know you don't know.