Great Throughts Treasury

"We are free to choose our actions, based on our knowledge of correct principles, but we are not free to choose the consequences of those actions. Remember, If you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other."

"We are free to choose our actions, but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions."

"We are free to choose our actions? but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions."

"We are limited but we can push back the borders of our limitations"

"We are not our feelings. We are not our moods. We are not even our thoughts. The very fact that we can think about these things separates us from them and from the animal world. Self-awareness enables us to stand apart and examine even the way we see ourselves?our self-paradigm, the most fundamental paradigm of effectiveness. It affects not only our attitudes and behaviors, but also how we see other people. It becomes our map of the basic nature of"

"We are responsible for our own effectiveness, for our own happiness, and ultimately? for most of our circumstances."

"We are more in need of a vision or destination and a compass and less in need of a road map."

"We can't live without eating, but we don't live to eat."

"We become what we repeatedly do."

"We are responsible for our own lives."

"We can make a promise and keep it. Or we can set a goal and work to achieve it."

"We could spend weeks, months, even years laboring with the personality ethic trying to change our attitudes and behaviors and not even begin to approach the phenomenon of change that occurs spontaneously when we see things differently"

"We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow."

"We can?t go very far to change our seeing without simultaneously changing our being, and vice versa."

"We do not have to love. We choose to love."

"We don?t always want answers or advice. Sometimes we just want company."

"We hear a lot about identity theft when someone takes your wallet and pretends to be you and uses your credit cards. But the more serious identity theft is to get swallowed up in other people?s definition of you."

"We have a tendency to rush things, and fix them up with good advice."

"We live in a culture of blame ? a full 70 percent of respondents say that people in their organization tend to blame others when things go wrong. So taking responsibility will mean swimming against the current."

"We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions."

"We live in a Knowledge Worker Age but operate our organizations in a controlling Industrial Age model that absolutely suppresses the release of human potential. Voice is essentially irrelevant."

"We must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as at the world we see, and understand that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world."

"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."

"We must never be too busy to take time to sharpen the saw."

"We must not let the actions or words of others determine our responses. Magnanimous people make the choice to respond to the indignities of others based upon their own principles and their own value system rather than their moods or anger."

"We need to have business leaders who live by deep, strong principles."

"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."

"We see the world, not as it is, but as we are -- or, as we are conditioned to see it. When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms."

"We seek not to imitate the masters, rather we seek what they sought."

"Well, why don?t you take a break for a few minutes and sharpen that saw? you inquire. I?m sure it would go a lot faster."

"We see the world not as it is, but as we are."

"We tend to get what we expect ? both from ourselves and from others. When we expect more, we tend to get more; when we expect less, we tend to get less."

"We're responsible for our own lives."

"What happens when you manage people like things? They stop believing that leadership can become a choice."

"What is common sense isn't common practice."

"What air is to the body, to feel understood is to the heart."

"What is moral authority? It is the principled use of our freedom and power to choose. Natural laws (like gravity) and principles (like respect, honesty, kindness, integrity, service and fairness) control the consequences of our choices. By the principled, humble use of freedom and power, the humble person obtains moral authority with people, cultures, organization and entire societies."

"What is most personal, is most general."

"What matters most is how we respond to what we experience in life."

"What lies behind us is nothing compared to what lies within us and ahead of us."

"What is important to the other person must be as important to you as the other person is to you."

"What one thing could you do in your personal and professional life that, if you did on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your life? Quadrant II activities have that kind of impact. Our effectiveness takes quantum leaps when we do them."

"What we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do. There are people we trust because we know their character. Whether they're eloquent or not, whether they have human-relations techniques or not, we trust them and work with them."

"What would you like each of the speakers to say about you and your life?"

"What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say."

"Whatever is at the center of our life will be the source of our security, guidance, wisdom, and power."

"Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve."

"When air is charged with emotions, an attempt to teach is often perceived as a form of judgment and rejection."

"When all you want is a person's body and you don't really want their mind, heart or spirit, you have reduced a person to a thing."

"Whatever your present situation, I assure you that you are not your habits. You can replace old patterns of self-defeating behavior with new patterns, new habits of effectiveness, happiness, and trust-based relationships."