Quotes from Stephen Covey

My experience has been that there are times to teach and times not to teach. When relationships are strained and the air charged with emotion, an attempt to teach is often perceived as a form of judgment and rejection.

The more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, the more we can take responsibility for those paradigms, examine them, test them against reality, listen to others and be open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view.

Anytime we think the problem is "out there," that thought is the problem. We empower what's out there to control us.

One man asked another on the death of a mutual friend, "How much did he leave?" His friend responded, "He left it all.

I believe that there are parts to human nature that cannot be reached by either legislation or education, but require the power of God to deal with.

Consequences are governed by principles, and behavior is governed by values, therefore, value principles!

We are free to choose our actions, based on our knowledge of correct principles, but we are not free to choose the consequences of those actions. Remember, "If you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other.

Just as breathing exercises help integrate body and mind, writing is a kind of psycho-neural muscular activity which helps bridge and integrate the conscious and subconscious minds. Writing distills, crystallizes, and clarifies thought and helps break the whole into parts.

Best way to predict your future is to create it.

It's not enough to dream. It's not enough to try. It's not enough to set goals or climb ladders. It's not enough to value. The effort has to be based on practical realities that produce the result. Only then can we dream, set goals, and work to achieve them with confidence.

That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only which gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods.

Proactive people make love a verb. Love is something you do: the sacrifices you make, the giving of self, like a mother bringing a newborn into the world... Love is a value that is actualized through loving actions. Proactive people subordinate feeling to values. Love, the feeling, can be recaptured.