Stephen Covey Quotes

The single observation I would offer for your consideration is that some things are beyond your control. You can lose your health to illness or accident. You can lose your wealth to all manner of unpredictable sources. What are not easily stolen from you without your cooperation are your principles and your values. They are your most important possessions and, if carefully selected and nurtured, will well serve you and your fellow man.

Because they are mean is no reason why I should be. I hate such things, and though I think I've a right to be hurt, I don't intend to show it. (Amy March)

If you are affronted it is better to pass it by in silence, or with a jest, though with some dishonor, than to endeavor revenge. If you can keep reason above passion, that and watchfulness will be your best defenders.

A man who cannot control his temper is not very likely to control his passions, and no matter what his pretensions in religion, he moves in daily life very close to the animal plane.

You have to fight the green monster with your mind, not your fists.

The essential idea of Stoicism in my interpretation is, you don't control the world around you, you control how you respond. At 19, that's very empowering.

The problem is not what other people think, do or say; it is your reaction.

Integrity in the Moment of Choice: Quality of life depends on what happens in the space between stimulus and response.

The strong is not the one who is physically powerful, but indeed, the one who controls himself when angry.

There are times when you get frustrated, but the one thing you always focus on is treating people well. You just cannot storm off and freak out.

You have to have a strong sense of your values and a strong sense of who you are, because there are a lot of events and a lot of people who will pull you in this direction or that direction.

You don't have to be kind. You have to be calm. Once you start showing that people can affect your emotions, then you obviously don't have that much power. If a stewardess can affect your emotional life, then you don't have any power in life and you just showed your whole hand.

Just remember, anger is always your enemy. You must keep your emotions in check. The moment you lose control of them, you lose the fight every time. (Takeshi)

We cannot always control everything that happens to us in this life, but we can control how we respond.

My manners have always been the first thing to go when I get upset, and some people say that they stopped coming back a long time ago.​

I judge people by their own principles..not by my own

Living without hate for people is almost impossible. There is nothing wrong with fantasizing about revenge. You can have that feeling. You just shouldn't act in it.

I think that sometimes people [who overreact or lash out] will hang on to their point just because they're so embarrassed that they made it. They won't set it down because they are the authors of these [disproportionate responses] and they have a lot to be embarrassed about.

It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

You're only as good as your values.

A man who is good from docility, and not from stern self-control, has no character.

Anger is natural. It's part of the force. You just have to learn to hang out with it.

I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.

I have sometimes wondered also whether in people like me who come to the boil fast (soupe au lait, the French call this trait, like a milk soup that boils over) the tantrum is not a built-in safety valve against madness or illness. ... The fierce tension in me, when it is properly channeled, creates the good tension for work. But when it becomes unbalanced I am destructive. How to isolate that good tension is my problem these days. Or, put in another way, how to turn the heat down fast enough so the soup won't boil over!

If you really have integrity, there are very few people who can insult you, or honor you.