QUOTES & QUIPS: Insights on Living the 7 Habits by Stephen R. Covey

CONTENTS:

Foreword

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

Habit 6: Synergize

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Biographical Index

FOREWORD

I believe there are moments in each day during which the mind and heart can be affected in a way that powerfully impacts the rest of the day. If we plant an inspirational thought in our minds during such moments and then envision how we might practice that idea throughout the day, we tap into a wellspring that not only helps us meet our challenges but gives us new options for responding to important opportunities and teaching moments.

Timeless ideas from all over the world, from ancient China to the great minds of the twentieth century, illuminate the principles of the 7 Habits and provide just such inspiration to affect the outcome of each day and enhance the mind’s capacity to envision the great possibilities within each of us.

With deep appreciation for the wisdom of great men and women through the ages, I commend to you this collection of Quotes and Quips.

—Stephen R. Covey

HABIT 1

* * *

BE PROACTIVE

Being proactive is more than taking initiative. It is recognizing that we are responsible for our own choices and have the freedom to choose based on principles and values rather than on moods or conditions. Proactive people are agents of change and choose not to be victims, to be reactive, or to blame others.

—Stephen R. Covey

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.

– Booker T. Washington

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.

– George Bernard Shaw

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

– Anne Frank

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.

– Abraham Maslow

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigor and strength.

– Samuel Smiles

There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.

– Tennessee Williams

The real risk is doing nothing.

– Denis Waitley

I’ve never looked back before. I’ve never had the time and it has always seemed so dangerous. To look back is to relax one’s vigil.

– Bette Davis

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look. To affect the quality of the day—that is the highest of arts.

– Henry David Thoreau

We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it—but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.

– Oliver Wendell Holmes

We only want that which is given naturally to all peoples of the world, to be masters of our own fate, only of our fate, not of others, and in cooperation and friendship with others.

– Golda Meir

I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.

– Sylvia Plath

Each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity.

– Marie Curie

’Tis the sorest of all human ills, to abound in knowledge and yet have no power over action.

– Herodotus

My work will be finished if I succeed in carrying conviction to the human family that every man or woman, however weak in body, is the guardian of his or her self-respect and liberty.

– Mohandas K. Gandhi

The greatest discovery of my generation is that you can change your circumstances by changing your attitudes of mind.

– William James

Man is not fully conditioned and determined; he determines himself whether to give in to conditions or to stand up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist, but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.

– Viktor Frankl

Let him who would move the world, first move himself.

– Socrates

He who conquers others is strong;

He who conquers himself is mighty.

– Lao tsu

I have generally found that a man who is good at excuses is usually good at nothing else.

– Benjamin Franklin

Man’s unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.

– Ayn Rand

When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inward and examine ourselves.

– Confucius

Reform must come from within, not from without. You cannot legislate for virtue.

– Cardinal James Gibbons

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

– Francis Bacon

Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

– William Jennings Bryan

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinions; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.

– Pearl S. Buck

O God, grant us the serenity to accept

What cannot be changed;

The courage to change what can be changed;

And wisdom to know one from the other.

– Reinhold Niebuhr

I think one’s feelings waste themselves in words, they ought all to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring results.

– Florence Nightingale

I am the master of my fate;

I am the captain of my soul.

– William Ernest Henley

He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea.

– Thomas Fuller

In the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually.

– Viktor Frankl

I do believe it is possible to create, even without ever writing a word or painting a picture, by simply molding one’s inner life. And that too is a deed.

– Etty Hillesum

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?

– Robert Browning

As far as your self-control goes, as far goes your freedom.

– Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.

– Booker T. Washington

It is the ability to choose which makes us human.

– Madeleine L’Engle

Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.

– Benjamin Disraeli

One can spend a lifetime assigning blame, finding the cause “out there” for all troubles that exist. Contrast this with the “responsible attitude” of confronting the situation, bad or good, and instead of asking “What caused the trouble? Who was to blame?” asking “How can I handle this present situation to make the most of it? What can I salvage here?”

– Abraham Maslow

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

– Anatole France

What you can do, or dream you can, begin it:

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

– Theodore Roosevelt

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.

– William Shakespeare

Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.

– Henry John Kaiser

During the first period of a man’s life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.

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