Stephen Covey (1932-2012) was an influential American author and motivational speaker, best known for his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” Published in 1989, the book outlines seven principles for personal and professional effectiveness. These habits include being proactive, setting clear goals, prioritizing tasks, seeking win-win solutions, practicing empathetic communication, fostering collaboration, and maintaining overall well-being. Covey’s work has had a lasting impact on personal development, leadership, and organizational management, emphasizing character development and ethical decision-making. In addition to his renowned book, Covey authored several others, contributing to his legacy as a prominent figure in the self-help genre. His teachings continue to inspire individuals and businesses globally.
Stephen Covey Quotes
1. “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
— Stephen R. Covey
2. “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
— Stephen R. Covey
3. “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
— Stephen R. Covey
4. “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”
— Stephen R. Covey
5. “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”
— Stephen R. Covey
6. “Start with the end in mind.”
— Stephen R. Covey
7. “Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.”
— Stephen R. Covey
8. “To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.”
— Stephen R. Covey
9. “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
— Stephen R. Covey
10. “Live out of your imagination, not your history.”
— Stephen R. Covey
11. “Make time for planning: Wars are won in the general’s tent.”
— Stephen R. Covey
12. “Treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.”
— Stephen R. Covey
13. “There are three constants in life: change, choice and principles.”
— Stephen R. Covey
14. “Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”
— Stephen R. Covey
15. “To achieve goals you’ve never achieved before, you need to start doing things you’ve never done before.”
— Stephen R. Covey
16. “Proactive people carry their own weather with them.”
— Stephen R. Covey
17. “Synergy is better than my way or your way. It’s our way.”
— Stephen R. Covey
18. “Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.”
— Stephen R. Covey
19. “Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.”
— Stephen R. Covey
20. “Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.”
— Stephen R. Covey
21. “The way we see the problem is the problem.”
— Stephen R. Covey
22. “Leadership is a choice, not a position.”
— Stephen R. Covey
23. “Stop setting goals. Goals are pure fantasy unless you have a specific plan to achieve them.”
— Stephen R. Covey
24. “Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic.”
— Stephen R. Covey
25. “One thing’s for sure. If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to keep getting what we’re getting. One definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect different results.”
— Stephen R. Covey
26. “We see the world, not as it is, but as we are – or, as we are conditioned to see it. When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms.”
— Stephen R. Covey
27. “What you do has far greater impact than what you say.”
— Stephen R. Covey
28. “It takes humility to seek feedback. It takes wisdom to understand it, analyze it and appropriately act on it.”
— Stephen R. Covey
29. “Taking initiative is a form of self-empowerment.”
— Stephen R. Covey
30. “When you have too many top priorities, you effectively have no top priorities.”
— Stephen R. Covey
31. “Live your life by a compass, not a clock.”
— Stephen R. Covey
32. “The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.”
— Stephen R. Covey
33. “Accountability breeds response-ability.”
— Stephen R. Covey
34. “If the big rocks don’t go in first, they aren’t going to fit in later.”
— Stephen R. Covey
35. “To live; to love; to learn; and to leave a legacy.”
— Stephen R. Covey
36. “Self-awareness involves deep personal honesty. It comes from asking and answering hard questions.”
— Stephen R. Covey
37. “Where you are headed is more important than how fast you are going. Rather than always focusing on what’s urgent, learn to focus on what is really important.”
— Stephen R. Covey
38. “We must never be too busy to take time to sharpen the saw.”
— Stephen R. Covey
39. “People don’t listen to understand. They listen to reply. The collective monologue is everyone talking and no one listening.”
— Stephen R. Covey
40. “You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut.”
— Stephen R. Covey
41. “If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control – myself.”
— Stephen R. Covey
42. “The essence of synergy is to value differences-to respect them, to build on strengths, to compensate for weaknesses.”
— Stephen R. Covey
43. “The undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions.”
— Stephen R. Covey
44. “We judge ourselves by our intentions. And others by their actions.”
— Stephen R. Covey
45. “All things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things.”
— Stephen R. Covey
46. “You can learn great things from your mistakes when you aren’t busy denying them.”
— Stephen R. Covey
47. “The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply.”
— Stephen R. Covey
48. “We think we see the world as it is, when in fact we see the world as we are.”
— Stephen R. Covey
49. “The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.””
— Stephen R. Covey
50. “When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.”
— Stephen R. Covey
51. “Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.”
— Stephen R. Covey
52. “To know and not to do is not to know.”
— Stephen R. Covey
53. “Win-win is a belief in the Third Alternative. It’s not your way or my way; it’s a better way, a higher way.”
— Stephen R. Covey
54. “Beginners are many; finishers are few.”
— Stephen R. Covey
55. “Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.”
— Stephen R. Covey
56. “Leadership is communicating people’s worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it themselves.”
— Stephen R. Covey
57. “Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.”
— Stephen R. Covey
58. “Personal leadership is the process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with them.”
— Stephen R. Covey
59. “The key to success is dedication to life-long learning.”
— Stephen R. Covey
60. “Self-awareness is our capacity to stand apart from ourselves and examine our thinking, our motives, our history, our scripts, our actions, and our habits and tendencies.”
— Stephen R. Covey
61. “It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.”
— Stephen R. Covey
62. “Highly proactive people don’t blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice.”
— Stephen R. Covey
63. “If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”
— Stephen R. Covey
64. “Difference is the beginning of synergy.”
— Stephen R. Covey
65. “The only thing that endures over time is the ‘Law of the Farm.’ You must prepare the ground, plant the seed, cultivate, and water if you expect to reap the harvest.”
— Stephen R. Covey
66. “Free your heart from hatred – forgive. Free your mind from worries – most never happen. Live simply and appreciate what you have. Give more. Expect less.”
— Stephen R. Covey
67. “To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.”
— Stephen R. Covey
68. “You can’t hold someone accountable for results if you supervise their methods.”
— Stephen R. Covey
69. “Paradigms are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world.”
— Stephen R. Covey
70. “Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.”
— Stephen R. Covey
71. “The greatest risk is the risk of riskless living.”
— Stephen R. Covey
72. “We can act instead of being acted upon.”
— Stephen R. Covey
73. “Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.”
— Stephen R. Covey
74. “Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people. But it takes time and patience.”
— Stephen R. Covey
75. “Life is a mission, not a career.”
— Stephen R. Covey
76. “Two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right. It’s not logical; it’s psychological.”
— Stephen R. Covey
77. “Time management is a misnomer, the challenge is to manage ourselves.”
— Stephen R. Covey
78. “When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.”
— Stephen R. Covey
79. “Almost every significant breakthrough is the result of a courageous break with traditional ways of thinking.”
— Stephen R. Covey
80. “Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, underline it. No involvement, no commitment.”
— Stephen R. Covey
81. “Trust is the highest form of human motivation.”
— Stephen R. Covey
82. “Nothing is as fast as the speed of trust. Nothing is as fulfilling as a relationship of trust. Nothing is as inspiring as an offering of trust. Nothing is as profitable as the economics of trust. Nothing has more influence than a reputation of trust.”
— Stephen R. Covey
83. “Compliance does not foster innovation, trust does. You can’t sustain long-term innovation, for example, in a climate of distrust.”
— Stephen R. Covey
84. “The reality is that everybody makes mistakes. The issue isn’t whether you will make them, it’s what you will do about them. It’s whether you will choose the path of humility and courage or the path of ego and pride.”
— Stephen R. Covey
85. “Once you have a clear picture of your priorities – that is values, goals, and high leverage activities – organize around them.”
— Stephen R. Covey
86. “Most people struggle with life balance simply because they haven’t paid the price to decide what is really important to them.”
— Stephen R. Covey
87. “Satisfied needs do not motivate. It’s only the unsatisfied need that motivates. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival – to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.”
— Stephen R. Covey
88. “Moving along the upward spiral requires us to learn, commit, and do on increasingly higher planes. We deceive ourselves if we think that any one of these is sufficient. To keep progressing, we must learn, commit, and do-learn, commit, and do-and learn, commit, and do again.”
— Stephen R. Covey
89. “Some people achieve the top of the ladder and only then realise it was standing against the wrong wall.”
— Stephen R. Covey
90. “The amateur salesman sells products; the professional sells solutions to needs and problems.”
— Stephen R. Covey
91. “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.”
— Stephen R. Covey
92. “Make small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be a part of the solution, not the problem.”
— Stephen R. Covey
93. “To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.”
— Stephen R. Covey
94. “Visualising something organises one’s ability to accomplish it.”
— Stephen R. Covey
95. “Response-ability is the ABILITY to choose our response to any circumstance or condition.”
— Stephen R. Covey
96. “If you can hire people whose passion intersects with the job, they won’t require any supervision at all. They will manage themselves better than anyone could ever manage them. Their fire comes from within, not from without. Their motivation is internal, not external.”
— Stephen R. Covey
97. “Humility is the mother of all virtues, courage the father, integrity the child and wisdom the grandchild.”
— Stephen R. Covey
98. “Everyone chooses one of two roads in life – the old and the young, the rich and the poor, men and women alike. One is the broad, well-traveled road to mediocrity, the other road to greatness and meaning.”
— Stephen R. Covey
99. “Trust is a function of two things: character and competence. Character includes your integrity, your motive and your intent with people. Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, and your track record. Both are vital.”
— Stephen R. Covey
100. “A personal mission statement becomes the DNA for every other decision we make.”
— Stephen R. Covey
101. “Where there’s no gardener, there’s no garden.”
— Stephen R. Covey
102. “The ability to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust is the key professional and personal competency of our time.”
— Stephen R. Covey
103. “When you engage in a work that taps your talent and fuels your passion-that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet-therein lies your voice, your calling, your soul’s code.”
— Stephen R. Covey
104. “Your systems are perfectly designed to get the results that you are getting.”
— Stephen R. Covey
105. “If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy.”
— Stephen R. Covey
106. “We are free to choose our response in any situation, but in doing so we chose the attendant consequence. If we pick up one end of the stick, we pick up the other.”
— Stephen R. Covey
107. “Be proactive. Ask yourself, “Are my actions based on self-chosen values or on my moods, feelings and circumstances?””
— Stephen R. Covey
108. “To Retain those who are present, be loyal to those who are absent.”
— Stephen R. Covey
109. “Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind you.”
— Stephen R. Covey
110. “We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.”
— Stephen R. Covey
111. “Role modeling is the most basic responsibility of parents. Parents are handing life’s scripts to their children, scripts that in all likelihood will be acted out for the rest of the children’s lives.”
— Stephen R. Covey
112. “We not not our feelings. We are not our moods. We not even our thoughts.”
— Stephen R. Covey
113. “The environment you fashion out of your thoughts, your beliefs, your ideals, your philosophy is the only climate you will ever live in. The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.”
— Stephen R. Covey
114. “People are your most valuable asset. Only people can be made to appreciate in value.”
— Stephen R. Covey
115. “Find your voice, and inspire others to find theirs. Don’t ignore that longing to make a difference.”
— Stephen R. Covey
116. “It doesn’t really matter how fast you’re going if you’re heading in the wrong direction.”
— Stephen R. Covey
117. “Private victories precede public victories. You can’t invert that process any more than you can harvest a crop before you plant it.”
— Stephen R. Covey
118. “The greatest and most inspiring mountain climbing achievements in history are not so much stories of individual achievement, but are stories of the extraordinary power of a unified, talented, prepared team that stays loyally committed to one another and to their shared vision to the end.”
— Stephen R. Covey
119. “What is common sense isn’t common practice.”
— Stephen R. Covey
120. “To listen with empathy is the most important human skill.”
— Stephen R. Covey
121. “Organize and execute around priorities.”
— Stephen R. Covey
122. “All the well-meaning advice in the world won’t amount to a hill of beans if we’re not even addressing the real problem.”
— Stephen R. Covey
123. “There’s strong data that, within companies, the No. 1 reason for ethical violations is the pressure to meet expectations, sometimes unrealistic expectations.”
— Stephen R. Covey
124. “The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it. This literally turns a failure into a success.”
— Stephen R. Covey
125. “Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.”
— Stephen R. Covey
126. “Synergy: The combined effect of individuals in collaboration that exceeds the sum of their individual effects.”
— Stephen R. Covey
127. “When you really listen to another person from their point of view, and reflect back to them that understanding, it’s like giving them emotional oxygen.”
— Stephen R. Covey
128. “Unless you’re continually improving your skills, you’re quickly becoming irrelevant.”
— Stephen R. Covey
129. “Results matter! They matter to your credibility.”
— Stephen R. Covey
130. “Efficient management without effective leadership is, as one individual phrased, it, “like straightening deck chairs on the Titanic”.”
— Stephen R. Covey
131. “You don’t see the world as it is, you see it according to who you are.”
— Stephen R. Covey
132. “Do what is important, not what is urgent.”
— Stephen R. Covey
133. “All things are created twice; first mentally; then physically. The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blue print of the desired result.”
— Stephen R. Covey
134. “Your power to choose your direction of your life allows you to reinvent yourself, to change your future, and to powerfully influence the rest of creation.”
— Stephen R. Covey
135. “Feedback often tells you more about the person who is giving it than about you.”
— Stephen R. Covey
136. “An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success.”
— Stephen R. Covey
137. “Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships with others.”
— Stephen R. Covey
138. “Passion is the fire, enthusiasm and courage that an individual feels when she is doing something she loves while accomplishing worthy ends, something that satisfies her deepest needs.”
— Stephen R. Covey
139. “Sacrifice really means giving up something good for something better.”
— Stephen R. Covey
140. “Leaders are not born or made – they are self made.”
— Stephen R. Covey
141. “Live simply and appreciate what you have. Give more. Expect less.”
— Stephen R. Covey
142. “The place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our circle of influence, our own character.”
— Stephen R. Covey
143. “The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.”
— Stephen R. Covey
144. “Being is seeing in the human dimension.”
— Stephen R. Covey
145. “People are social beings and want interaction and social learning is the primary form of learning, just as word of mouth advertising is the highest form of advertising.”
— Stephen R. Covey
146. “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.”
— Stephen R. Covey
147. “Before you wonder “Am I doing things right?” wonder “Am I doing the right things?””
— Stephen R. Covey
148. “Network marketing has come of age. It’s undeniable that it has become a way to entrepreneurship and independence for millions of people.”
— Stephen R. Covey
149. “When we listen with the intent to understand others, rather than with the intent to reply, we begin true communication and relationship building. Opportunities to then speak openly and to be understood come much more naturally and easily.”
— Stephen R. Covey
150. “You think effectiveness with people and efficiency with things.”
— Stephen R. Covey
151. “Interdependence is a higher value than independence.”
— Stephen R. Covey
152. “True leadership is moral authority, not formal authority. Leadership is a choice, not a position. The choice is to follow universal timeless principles, which will build trust and respect from the entire organization. Those with formal authority alone will lose this trust and respect.”
— Stephen R. Covey
153. “Trust is the one thing that affects everything else you’re doing. It’s a performance multiplier which takes your trajectory upwards, for every activity you engage in, from strategy to execution.”
— Stephen R. Covey
154. “As long as you think the problem is out there, that very thought is the problem.”
— Stephen R. Covey
155. “I teach people how to treat me by what I will allow.”
— Stephen R. Covey
156. “Building and repairing relationships are long-term investments.”
— Stephen R. Covey
157. “While we cannot always choose what happens to us, we can choose our responses.”
— Stephen R. Covey
158. “The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things.”
— Stephen R. Covey
159. “Happen to things, don’t let things happen to you.”
— Stephen R. Covey
160. “If you don’t have confidence in the diagnosis, you won’t have confidence in the prescription.”
— Stephen R. Covey
161. “Our greatest joy and our greatest pain comes in our relationships with others.”
— Stephen R. Covey
162. “Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside.”
— Stephen R. Covey
163. “If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication.”
— Stephen R. Covey
164. “A good affirmation has five basic ingredients: it’s personal, it’s positive, it’s present tense, it’s visual, and it’s emotional.”
— Stephen R. Covey
165. “Success is when you realize obstacles you face are challenges to help you become better – and your response equals the challenge.”
— Stephen R. Covey
166. “If there’s one thing that’s certain in business, it’s uncertainty.”
— Stephen R. Covey
167. “If you put good people in bad systems you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow.”
— Stephen R. Covey
168. “Remember, technology is a great servant, but a terrible master.”
— Stephen R. Covey
169. “The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values – carefully thought about, selected and internalized values.”
— Stephen R. Covey
170. “We develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and obstacles.”
— Stephen R. Covey
171. “Management works in the system; leadership works on the system.”
— Stephen R. Covey
172. “Each of us tends to think we see things as they are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. We see the world, not as it is, but as we are – or as we are conditioned to see it.”
— Stephen R. Covey
173. “If you don’t set your goals based upon your Mission Statement, you may be climbing the ladder of success only to realize, when you get to the top, you’re on the WRONG building.”
— Stephen R. Covey
174. “If we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms.”
— Stephen R. Covey
175. “Most leaders would agree that they’d be better off having an average strategy with superb execution than a superb strategy with poor execution. Those who execute always have the upper hand.”
— Stephen R. Covey
176. “Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.”
— Stephen R. Covey
177. “Vision is seeing a future state with the mind’s eye. Vision is applied imagination.”
— Stephen R. Covey
178. “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.”
— Stephen R. Covey
179. “Effective communication is built on the cement of trust. And trust is based on trustworthiness, not politics.”
— Stephen R. Covey
180. “Human beings are not things needing to be motivated and controlled; they are four dimensional – body, mind, heart, and spirit.”
— Stephen R. Covey
181. “Exercise integrity in the moment of truth.”
— Stephen R. Covey
182. “The key to growth is to learn to make promises and to keep them.”
— Stephen R. Covey
183. “Nothing is more exciting and bonding in relationships than creating together.”
— Stephen R. Covey
184. “The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.”
— Stephen R. Covey
185. “A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It’s the testing point of our character and competence.”
— Stephen R. Covey
186. “Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.”
— Stephen R. Covey
187. “Trust is a powerful accelerator to performance and when trust goes up, speed also goes up while cost comes down – producing what we call a trust dividend.”
— Stephen R. Covey
188. “Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.”
— Stephen R. Covey
189. “Integrity in the Moment of Choice Quality of life depends on what happens in the space between stimulus and response.”
— Stephen R. Covey
190. “Technology and tools are useful and powerful when they are your servant and not your master.”
— Stephen R. Covey
191. “Moral authority comes from following universal and timeless principles like honesty, integrity, treating people with respect.”
— Stephen R. Covey
192. “You can’t have the fruits without the roots.”
— Stephen R. Covey
193. “I can change. I can live out of my imagination instead of my memory. I can tie myself to my limitless potential instead of my limiting past.”
— Stephen R. Covey
194. “As you live your values, your sense of identity, integrity, control, and inner-directedness will infuse you with both exhilaration and peace. You will define yourself from within, rather than by people’s opinions or by comparisons to others.”
— Stephen R. Covey
195. “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.”
— Stephen R. Covey
196. “Doing the right things for the right reason in the right way is the key to Quality of Life!”
— Stephen R. Covey
197. “What you see often depends on what you are looking for.”
— Stephen R. Covey
198. “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They’re either speaking or preparing to speak. They’re filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people’s lives.”
— Stephen R. Covey
199. “Don’t get buried in the thick of thin things.”
— Stephen R. Covey
200. “True greatness will be achieved through the abundant mind that works selflessly – with mutual respect, for mutual benefit.”
— Stephen R. Covey
