Stephen R. Covey

In addition to self-awareness, imagination and conscience, it is the fourth human endowment-independent will-that really makes effective self-management possible. It is the ability to make decisions and choices and to act in accordance with them. It is the ability to act rather than to be acted upon, to proactively carry out the program we have developed through the other three endowments. Empowerment comes from learning how to use this great endowment in the decisions we make every day.

We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions.

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

We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals.

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.

Accountability breeds responsibility.

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.

Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.

Do not let anyone tell you it cannot be done. No challenge can match the heart and fight and spirit of America. We will not fail. Our country will thrive and prosper again.

People do make their luck by daring to follow their instincts, taking risks and embracing every possibility.

In God we trust; all others bring data.

Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.

I did not breeze in there thinking: ‘I’m going to nail this.’ My heart rate was not low when I was doing the Golden Globes. I wanted to do well. It’s very bizarre to be in a room where everybody in your audience is famous. But also: it’s an awards show!

Just the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

I’m competitive, and I love to create challenges for myself. Maybe that’s not always a good thing. It can make life complicated.

A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

Thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life.

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

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

It will be disastrous when a leader or manager shows up with one attitude one day and treats people with a different attitude the next day.