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.

Public behavior is merely private character writ large.

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

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

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’.

To learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.

You never fail until you stop trying.

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

Authors by the hundreds can tell you stories by the thousands of those rejection slips before they found a publisher who was willing to ‘gamble’ on an unknown.

Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.

Most people go along with the crowd. They do things because everybody else does it.

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

My dream was to make $1,000 a week, have a Cadillac convertible and an apartment on Ocean Park where I would’ve thought that would be nirvana.

Courage is on display every day, and only the courageous wring the most out of life.

Love gets unappreciated a lot of times, but you still gotta keep giving it

Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.

Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful.

I would say to do you and do you well. Don’t try to be anyone else. Don’t try to emulate what someone is doing. Play to your strengths. Even if you see someone onstage that is killing it, don’t try to do what they’re doing. Just keep doing you.

All one needs to do is read – books, magazines, research the Internet – and pay attention to the influencers in their lives to discover the myriad people of strong moral character who have and still are making positive, meaningful contributions and differences in our world.

Put all excuses aside and remember this: You are capable.

Decide what you want, and decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work.