The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

by Stephen R. Covey

“The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it: but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.”

Moving along the upward spiral requires us to learn, commit, and do on increasingly higher planes. We deceive ourselves if we think that any one of these is sufficient. To keep progressing, we must learn, commit, and do—learn, commit, and do—and learn, commit, and do again.

Commit to write down specific “sharpen the saw” activities in all four

dimensions every week, to do them, and to evaluate your performance and results.

there is a gap or a space between stimulus and response, and that the key to both our growth and happiness is how we use that space.

Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You can go home again—if your home is a treasured relationship, a precious companionship.

My contemplation of life and human nature in that secluded place had taught me that he who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any progress.

“We must not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring

will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.”

7. You can pretty well summarize the first three habits with the expression “make and keep a promise.” And you can pretty well summarize the next three habits with the expression “involve others in the problem and work out the solution together.”

“Was that a deposit or a withdrawal?”

Integrity is a higher value than loyalty.

“That which we desire most earnestly we believe most easily.”

“When the infrastructure changes, everything rumbles,” and I think the technical infrastructure is central to everything. It will accelerate all good and bad trends.