Stephen R. Covey Quotations

Synergy: The combined effect of individuals in collaboration that exceeds thesum of their individual effects.

Synergy is almost as if a group collectively agrees to subordinate old scripts andto write a new one.

I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a transformer in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader.

You can't talk your way out of what you've behaved yourself into.

The noise of urgency creates an illusion of importance

Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We cansubordinate feelings to values.

We may be very busy, we may be very efficient, but we will also be truly effective only when we begin with the end in mind.

To judge individuals before understanding them is a form of human rejection andfeeds upon itself.

Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage--pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically--to say 'no' to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger 'yes' burning inside. The enemy of the 'best' is often the 'good.'