Quotes from Stephen R. Covey

In the last analysis, as Marilyn Ferguson observed, "No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or by emotional appeal.

Inside-out" 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.

always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers. You can buy a person's hand, but you can't buy his heart.

Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and the why. Skill is the how to do. And desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to

Writing distills, crystallizes, and clarifies thought and helps break the whole into parts.

Efficient management without effective leadership is, as one individual has phrased it, "like straightening deck chairs on the Titanic." No

To try to change outward attitudes and behaviors does very little good in the long run if we fail to examine the basic paradigms from which those attitudes and behaviors flow. This

All of us are interested in things outside of our stewardships, and we should be, but the most important way to do anything about them is to magnify our own stewardships. When you focus on your own responsibility, you become relatively unconcerned with other peoples stewardships...The highest form of influence is to be a model, not a critic; a light, not a judge.

As Emerson once put it, "What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say." There are, of course

Proactive people subordinate feelings to values.

Viktor Frankl shared a brilliant insight about developing mission statements. He said, "The thing I learned is that you don't invent your mission, you detect it. You uncover it, as it were." You see, everyone has special gifts, unique qualities, and characteristics. And they need to work inwardly until they detect those aspects.

Our basic nature is to act, and not be acted upon. As well as enabling us to choose our response to particular circumstances, this empowers us to create circumstances. Taking initiative does not mean being pushy, obnoxious, or aggressive. It does mean recognizing our responsibility to make things happen.

if there is little or no trust, there is no foundation for permanent success.

Highly effective people do not really manage time—they manage themselves.

Private Victory precedes Public Victory. Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships with others.

You must be open and influenceable; then ironically, you will also discover an increase in your own power to influence

BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals). When you blend these two together - Preserve the Core AND Stimulate Progress - you get a magical dialectic that keeps a company or organisation vibrant over time

Roles and goals give structure and organized direction to your personal mission. If you don't yet have a personal mission statement, it's a good place to begin.

Love is a value that is actualized through loving actions.

I've set and met my career goals and I'm having tremendous professional success. But it's cost me my personal and family life. I don't know my wife and children anymore. I'm not even sure I know myself and what's really important to me. I've had to ask myself—is it worth it?

Some people say that you have to like yourself before you can like others. I think that idea has merit, but if you don't know yourself, if you don't control yourself, if you don't have mastery over yourself, it's very hard to like yourself, except in some short-term, psych-up, superficial way.

The two additional unique human endowments that enable us to expand our proactivity and to exercise personal leadership in our lives are imagination and conscience.

organizations are composed of people, and the more effective those people, the stronger the organization.

That leadership is primarily a function of who you are, for this is the foundation for everything you do. How do you build leaders? You first build character.