– Anaïs Nin
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.
– Samuel Johnson
Too many people, too many demands, too much to do; competent, busy, hurrying people—It just isn’t living at all.
– Anne Morrow Lindbergh
We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.
– Jimmy Carter
Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.
– Thomas Carlyle
The expedient thing and the right thing are seldom the same thing.
– Charles Brower
As if we could kill time without injuring eternity!
– Henry David Thoreau
Never promise more than you can perform.
– Publilius Syrus
Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.
– George Santayana
Without even knowing it, we are assaulted by a high note of urgency all the time. We end up pacing ourselves to the city rhythm whether or not it’s our own. In time we even grow hard of hearing to the rest of the world. Like a violinist stuck next to the timpani, we may lose the ability to hear our own instrument.
– Ellen Goodman
We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.
– Marian Wright Edelman
In vain do they talk of happiness who never subdued an impulse in obedience to a principle. He who never sacrificed a present to a future good, or a personal to a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind do of color.
– Horace Mann
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
– Epictetus
Work expands so as to fill time available for its completion.
– Cyril Northcote Parkinson
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
– Lao tsu
Wasting time is an unbearable punishment.
– Quin Guanshu
She wanted to be the reason for everything and so was the cause of nothing.
– Djuna Barnes
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
– Michael de Montaigne
It is a maxim universally agreed upon in agriculture, that nothing must be done too late; and again, that everything must be done at its proper season; while there is a third precept which reminds us that opportunities lost can never be regained.
– Pliny the Elder
What matters in a character is not whether one holds this or that opinion: what matters is how proudly one upholds it.
– Germaine de Staël
One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon—instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.
– Dale Carnegie
The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.
– Amelia Earhart
Men ought to remember those friends who were absent as well as those who were present.
– Diogenes Laertius
No man for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
– Nathaniel Hawthorne
I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.
– Lillian Hellman
HABIT 4
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THINK WIN-WIN
Thinking win-win is a frame of mind and heart that seeks mutual benefit and mutual respect in all interactions. It’s about thinking in terms of abundance and opportunity rather than of scarcity and adversarial competition. It’s not thinking selfishly (win-lose) or like a martyr (lose-win).
—Stephen R. Covey
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own house were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I’m involved in mankind.
– John Donne
Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.
– John F. Kennedy
As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.
– Marian Anderson
He makes things easier for himself who makes things easier for others.
– Asian idiom
Those who plot against their friends often find to their surprise that they destroy themselves in the bargain.
– Aesop
A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
Help thy brother’s boat across and lo! thine own has reached the shore.
– Hindu proverb
There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.
– Francois La Rochefoucauld
When I am employed in serving others I do not look upon myself as conferring favors but paying debts.
– Benjamin Franklin
People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes.
– Abigail Van Buren
The only way on earth to multiply happiness is to divide it.
– Paul Scherer
He who digs a hole for another may fall in himself.
– Russian proverb
One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.
– Archibald Rutledge
One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
– Booker T. Washington
For I imagine we are not striving merely to secure victory for my suggestions or for yours; rather we ought both of us to fight in support of the truth and the whole truth.
– Socrates
The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.
– Albert Schweitzer
Talent is always conscious of its own abundance and does not object to sharing.
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.
– Elie Wiesel
What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other.
– George Eliot
Me lift thee and thee lift me, and we’ll both ascend together.
– John Greenleaf Whittier
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.
– Charles Dickens
You can’t get ahead while you are getting even.
– Dick Armey
The race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot exist without mutual help.
– Walter Scott
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
– Indira Gandhi
We live very close together. So our prime purpose in this life is to help others.
– Dalai Lama
The only public good is that which assures the private good of the citizens.
– Simone de Beauvoir
Never find your delight in another’s misfortune.
– Publilius Syrus
A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.
– Nelson Mandela
HABIT 5
* * *
SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD
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. Seeking to understand takes consideration; seekmg to be understood takes courage. Effectiveness lies in balancing the two.
—Stephen R. Covey
The art of conversation consists of the exercise of two fine qualities: you must originate and you must sympathize; you must possess at the same time the habit of communicating and the habit of listening. The union is rare, but irresistible.
– Benjamin Disraeli
Three-fourths of the miseries and misunderstandings in the world will disappear if we step into the shoes of our adversaries and understand their standpoint.
– Mohandas K. Gandhi
Listen, or thy tongue will keep thee deaf.
– American Indian proverb
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. Anyone may gather it and no limit is set.
– Mother Teresa
It is important to learn not to be angry with opinions different from your own, but to set to work understanding how they come about. If, after you have understood them, they still seem false, you can then combat them more effectually than if you had continued to be merely horrified.
– Bertrand Russell
Great Spirit, help me never to judge another until I have walked in his moccasins.
– Sioux Indian prayer
Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.
– William Shakespeare
Culture—not space—is the greatest distance between two peoples.
– Jamake Highwater
We have not really budged a step from home until we take up residence in someone else’s point of view.