Stephen R. Covey

Seek first to understand and then to be understood.

Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential. They experience synergy only in small, peripheral ways in their lives. But creative experiences can be produced regularly, consistently, almost daily in people’s lives. It requires enormous personal security and openness and a spirit of adventure.

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.

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’s a fact that more people watch television and get their information that way than read books. I find new technology and new ways of communication very exciting and would like to do more in this field.

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.

Make today worth remembering.

Be open to new information and ideas.

The best way to get a better answer is to start asking a better question.

Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.

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.

Its kind of fun to do the impossible.

The more you prospect, the more you prosper.

There were no role models, there were no other people I knew who were dealing with the same issues that I was dealing with. I had no idea if this was a stage I was going through or not. But I go to the draft board in Brooklyn and I fill out the form and there was a question that said ‘Do you have homosexual tendencies?’ and I check yes. But where-ever I was on line I’d see people I went to high school with and I was afraid of anyone knowing this about me so I kept on falling back into line and falling back into line. If you said you had homosexual tendencies they sent you to a psychiatrist. He said ‘I see here you’ve checked the box?’ And I said ‘yup’. He said ‘So do you think you’d have a problem serving in the armed forces?’ I said well you know ‘So many men.’ And I was out of the service.

I believe in the Golden Rule. The Man with the Gold, Rules.

The more people tell you it’s not possible, that it can’t be done, the more you should be absolutely determined to prove them wrong. Treat the word ‘impossible’ as nothing more than motivation.

What distinguishes us from one another is our dreams, and what we do to make them come about.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.

The more you can dream, the more you can do.

Whether it’s eight o’clock in the morning or eight o’clock at night, I always try to greet others before they have a chance to speak to me.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.