Stephen Covey (Stephen Richards Covey) Quotes

If we spend most of our time concerned about things we cannot truly directly influence, what we can influence will be reduced. If we spend our energies on those things over which we can expect positive results, we will expand our influence.

Stephen Covey

• Energy
• Influence
• Results
• Concerned

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• My parents always encouraged us to get an education and establish a profession. However, my brothers and I grew up with considerable freedom, whether it was saving or spending our tips from the restaurant or our career choices.

  

  Ferid Murad
  • Up
  • Career
  • Parents

• For the traditional fantasies, a lot more of my research comes from reading rather than doing. I like my worlds to feel real, so I do a lot of world building research.

  

  Patricia Briggs
  • World
  • Real
  • Reading

• Younger customers are the future, but older customers have the money. So you need both: one for the present, and the other for the future.

  

  Uday Kotak
  • Money
  • Future
  • Present

• At some particular time, when I was 14 years old, I've done something that people didn't expect.

  

  Nadia Comaneci
  • People
  • Time
  • Done

• I know exactly what it is like to fight against the odds and to overcome adversity.

  

  Karen Handel
  • Know
  • Fight
  • Adversity

• My father taught me photography. It was his hobby, and we had a small darkroom in the fruit cellar of our basement. It was the kind of makeshift darkroom that was only dark at night.

  

  Sam Abell
  • Father
  • Night
  • Small

• We live in a dark time. Books are as dark as what is available to teenagers through the media every day.

  

  Tamora Pierce
  • Time
  • Live
  • Day

• The irony is that, coming from a white-collar British background, I tend to play blue-collar Americans!

  

  Damian Lewis
  • Play
  • Blue
  • British

• I use debit cards for everyday purchases, as I don't believe in credit cards. But this has caused problems, especially with American touring, because I refuse to have a credit card - and in America you can't pay for anything on a debit card.

  

  Paloma Faith
  • Believe
  • American
  • America

• I had to be reminded that the guitar is infinite. It never stops teaching you, it never stops being difficult; there's an unlimited amount of things to learn, and you'll never master it.

  

  Kaki King
  • You
  • Learn
  • Guitar

• My parents separated when I was young, and as a result, my father had to learn how to braid our hair on the nights my sisters and I would stay with him. We would arrive to school the next morning with these incredibly endearing lopsided braids he had fashioned. This may have expedited the process of my learning how to braid my own hair.

  

  Hailey Gates
  • School
  • May
  • Father

• Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

  

  Carl Sagan
  • Science
  • Deep
  • Religion

• My marks were always bad, and I was a bad influence on other children, so they would explain to my mother that they could retain me only by being partial towards me, and so I should offer to leave the school myself. I would barely get 40-50% and was also extremely naughty.

  

  Ram Charan
  • Children
  • School
  • Bad

• There's been quite a clear upswing in nationalist sentiments. Everyone is talking about it, in Turkey as well.

  

  Orhan Pamuk
  • Talking
  • Everyone
  • Turkey

• It's like running a marathon race. We train all hours of the day. When you are taking a bath, you are thinking of the flight.

  

  Kalpana Chawla
  • Thinking
  • Running
  • Day

• Think of how we challenged the impression that we taxed for its own sake and that we were hostile to business. We were right to change.

  

  Ed Miliband
  • Business
  • Think
  • Change

• It's like all the signs were telling me that I shouldn't be a boxer, so I quit.

  

  Olivier Martinez
  • Telling
  • Quit
  • Signs

• You can forgive yourself a great deal.

  

  Eddie Albert
  • Great
  • Yourself
  • Forgive

• If you take a candy bar in the short run, it gives you a burst of energy, but after a while, it just makes you fat.

  

  Ben Bernanke
  • Energy
  • Candy
  • Fat

• Society questions the police and their methods, and the police say, Do you want the criminals off the street or not?

  

  Kurt Russell
  • Society
  • Police

• That's what Google taught me. Aim higher. Udacity is my playground - to radically experiment and find out. I've seen the light.

  

  Sebastian Thrun
  • Aim
  • Experiments
  • Google

• 'That’s a nice speech, Trujillo,' Rybicki said. 'It doesn’t make it true.''General, at the moment, I wouldn’t place you as an authority on truth.'

  

  John Scalzi
  • Truth
  • True
  • Nice

• If we spend most of our time concerned about things we cannot truly directly influence, what we can influence will be reduced. If we spend our energies on those things over which we can expect positive results, we will expand our influence.

  

  Stephen Covey
  • Energy
  • Influence
  • Results