Quotes from Stephen Covey

The body, the heart, the mind, and the spirit. The essence of these needs is captured in this phrase "to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy.

Did you ever consider how ridiculous it would be to try to cram on a farm—to forget to plant in the spring, play all summer and then cram in the fall to bring in the harvest? The farm is a natural system. The price must be paid and the process followed. You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut. This principle is also true, ultimately, in human behavior, in human relationships. They, too, are natural systems based on the law of the harvest

See many parents, particularly mothers with small children, often frustrated in their desire to accomplish a lot because all they seem to do is meet the needs of little children all day. Remember, frustration is a function of our expectations, and our expectations are often a reflection of the social mirror rather than our own values and priorities.

Private victories precede public victories. You can't invert that process any more than you can harvest a crop before you plant it. It's inside-out.

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.

I know one father who was leaving with his children for a promised trip to the circus when a phone call came for him to come to work instead. He declined. When his wife suggested that perhaps he should have gone to work, he responded, "The work will come again, but childhood won't.

in our relationships with others. It involves mutual learning, mutual influence, mutual benefits.

Leadership is communicating to another their worth and potential so clearly they are inspired to see it in themselves.

The purpose of teaching is learning and learning is changed behavior.

Integrity is, fundamentally, the value we place on ourselves. It's our ability to make and keep commitments to ourselves, to "walk our talk." It's honor with self, a fundamental part of the Character Ethic, the essence of proactive growth.

Whether a problem is direct, indirect, or no control, we have in our hands the first step to the solution. Changing our habits, changing our methods of influence and changing the way we see our no control problems are all within our Circle of Influence.

It is not what others do or even our own mistakes that hurt us the most; it is our response to those things.