Stephen R. Covey

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.

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.

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

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

It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one’s heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.

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.

Before success comes in any man’s life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat, and perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit. That is what the majority of men do. That is why the majority is just ordinary.

If my life has had a theme, I suppose it has been a typical American theme in that, for most of it, I have been looking for happiness and success.

Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.

You can succeed at almost anything for which you have unbridled enthusiasm.

The real risk is doing nothing.

We grow great by dreams.

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.

When you catch a glimpse of your potential, that’s when passion is born.

If you’re going to have to swallow a frog, you don’t want to have to look at that sucker too long!

Sometimes you just got to give yourself what you wish someone else would give you.

When you are wronged repeatedly, the worst thing you can do is continue taking it – fight back!

The harder I work, the luckier I get.

Dream big and kick ass.

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.

The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach.