Stephen R. Covey

Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.

Private victories precede public victories. You can’t invert that process any more than you can harvest a crop before you plant it.

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.

You can’t live principals you can’t understand.

It is in the ordinary events of every day that we develop the proactive capacity to handle the extraordinary pressures of life. It’s how we make and keep commitments, how we handle a traffic jam, how we respond to an irate customer or a disobedient child. It’s how we view our problems and where we focus our energies. It’s the language we use.

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

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

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.

Only when you combine sound intellect with emotional discipline do you get rational behavior.

Give yourself a little freedom to develop into something or someone you’d actually like to be.

Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker.

Watch, listen, and learn. You can’t know it all yourself. Anyone who thinks they do is destined for mediocrity.

For all the hard times and tough challenges I faced during different periods of my life, I think I was lucky or blessed or both. When things looked bleak, a good guide would appear to set me straight. Someone once asked me about the villains who got in my way, the bad guys who wanted to trip me up or take me out. I don’t remember any. Maybe it’s my nature to remember the good and forget the bad, or maybe it’s my destiny to lock onto the righteous for help.

A genius! For 37 years I’ve practised fourteen hours a day, and now they call me a genius!

How you see the future is much more important than what happened in your past.

You were born to win, but to be a winner you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.

Now’s the best time you’ll ever have in life to get ahead!

Be grateful for what you have and stop complaining – it bores everybody else, does you no good, and doesn’t solve any problems.

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.

He climbs highest who helps another up.

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.