Stephen R. Covey

To focus on technique is like cramming your way through school. You sometimes get by, perhaps even get good grades, but if you don’t pay the price day in and day out, you’ll never achieve true mastery of the subjects you study or develop an educated mind.

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

We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.

If you’re proactive, you don’t have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective expanding experiences. You can consciously create your own.

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.

In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.

There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

Do more than you are being paid to do, and you’ll eventually be paid more for what you do.

When you encourage others, you in the process are encouraged because you’re making a commitment and difference in that person’s life. Encouragement really does make a difference.

A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.

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.

It’s a blip, not a catastrophe.

Sometimes understanding other people’s problems is the key to finding opportunities.

Have some fire. Be unstoppable. Be a force of nature. Be better than anyone here. And don’t give a damn what anyone thinks.

I maintained my edge by always being a student; you will always have something new to learn.

Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever.

Remember this: Nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy. Following your convictions means you must be willing to face criticism from those who lack the same courage to do what is right.

If you eat a frog first thing in the morning, the rest of your day will be wonderful.

Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.

An undefined problem has an infinite number of solutions.