Stephen R. Covey

The ability to manage well doesn’t make much difference if you’re not even in the right jungle.

People can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.

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’.

The character ethic, which I believe to be the foundation of success, teaches that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.

It’s easy to say no! when there’s a deeper yes! burning inside.

Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.

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.

Get going. Move forward. Aim High. Plan a takeoff. Don’t just sit on the runway and hope someone will come along and push the airplane. It simply won’t happen. Change your attitude and gain some altitude. Believe me, you’ll love it up here.

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

Little men with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds.

Focus on what you can control: your actions. How you react to negative feelings will be the key to your success.

I read for the ‘ah-ha’s,’ the information that makes a light bulb go off in my mind. I want to put information in my mind that is going to be the most beneficial to me, my family and my fellow man – financially, morally, spiritually, and emotionally.

Be there for your kids. Later, when you need them, they’ll be there for you.

Hope will never be silent.

I once dieted so religiously I quit eating in church.

People are basically the same the world over. Everybody wants the same things – to be happy, to be healthy, to be at least reasonably prosperous, and to be secure. They want friends, peace of mind, good family relationships, and hope that tomorrow is going to be even better than today.

If you are not willing to risk the usual you will have to settle for the ordinary.

The mind that opens to a new idea never comes back to its original size.

The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them.