Stephen R. Covey

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

As a principle-centered person you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act on you, and evaluate the options. Looking at the balanced whole–the work needs, the family needs, the other needs that may be involved, and the possible implications of the various alternatives — you’ll try to come up with the best solution taking all factors into consideration. We are limited but we can push back the borders of our limitations.

A cardinal principle of Total Quality escapes too many managers: you cannot continuously improve interdependent systems and processes until you progressively perfect interdependent, interpersonal relationships.

Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, and integrated wholeness.

But until a person can say deeply and honestly, ‘I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday’, that person cannot say, ‘I choose otherwise’.

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

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

The uniform, constant and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition … is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things toward improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration … surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.

I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: if you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big. Most people think small, because most people are afraid of success, afraid of making decisions, afraid of winning. And that gives people like me a great advantage.

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.

If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.

Don’t let someone who gave up on their dreams talk you out of going after yours.

Honesty and integrity are absolutely essential for success in life – all areas of life. The really good news is that anyone can develop both honesty and integrity.

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but ‘steal’ some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.

Personal discipline, when it becomes a way of life in our personal, family, and career lives, will enable us to do some incredible things.

I am a visceral person by nature. I act on instinct, quickly, without pondering possible disaster and without indulging in deep introspection.

Be careful not to compromise what you want most for what you want now.

Some of us learn from other people’s mistakes and the rest of us have to be other people.

We’ve realized the situation will not change so the answer is for us to change.