Great Throughts Treasury

"Prepare your mind and heart before you prepare your speech. What we say may be less important than how we say it."

"Private victories precede public victories."

"Private victories precede public victories. You can't invert that process any more than you can harvest a crop before you plant it."

"Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships with others."

"Public behavior is merely private character writ large."

"Seek first to understand and then to be understood."

"Strength lies in differences, not in similarities."

"Successful people often share similar characteristics. But I have come to believe that the single thing they have most in common is that they find success on the far side of failure."

"The best way to predict your future is to create it."

"The author of the bestselling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, as well as other books."

"Stress, of course, is a part of our lives even in stable times and we all need to learn how to create balance in life or we risk losing ourselves to mounting distractions and burnout."

"The crucial challenge of our world today is this: to find our voice and inspire others to find theirs."

"The greatest risk is the risk of riskless living."

"The environment you fashion out of your thoughts, your beliefs, your ideals, your philosophy is the only climate you will ever live in."

"The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities."

"The key to success is dedication to life-long learning."

"The key is not spending time, but in investing it."

"The key to motivation is motive. It's the why. It's the deeper yes! burning inside that makes it easier to say no to the less important."

"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

"The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are."

"The only thing that endures over time is the 'Law of the Farm.' You must prepare the ground, plant the seed, cultivate, and water if you expect to reap the harvest."

"The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: 1. Be Proactive - Focus on the things you can do something about. 2. Begin with the End in Mind - Begin everything you do with a clear picture of your ultimate goal. 3. Put First Things First - Manage your life according to your needs and priorities. 4. Think Win-Win - Stick with your true feelings, values, and commitments. Be considerate of the feelings of others. Believe there is plenty for everyone 5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood - Learn to communicate clearly and listen to others 6. Synergize - Two heads are better than one. 7. Sharpen the Saw - Allow yourself to grow by maintaining a balanced program in these four areas of your life: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual."

"The successful person has the habit of doing things failures don’t like to do. They don’t like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose."

"There are three constants in life... change, choice and principles."

"The opportunity today is to get authentic and real with people—to have open conversations, to look at the problems and honestly share the issues at hand—and then listen to people and let their ideas flow."

"Trust is the glue that holds everything together. It creates the environment in which all of the other elements - win-win stewardship agreements, self-directing individuals and teams, aligned structures and systems, and accountability - can flourish."

"Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships."

"There's a common misconception that a person's skill is their talent. Skills, however, are not talents. Talents, on the other hand, require skills."

"Unless we exercise our power to choose wisely, our actions will be determined by conditions. Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside of ourselves will affect us."

"Voice is unique personal significance—significance that is revealed as we face our greatest challenges and that makes us equal to them."

"Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people. But it takes time and patience."

"We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey."

"We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals."

"We don't invent our missions, we detect them."

"We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice."

"We don't see things as they are; we see things as WE are."

"We have hit-and-run relationships, often leaving broken bodies and broken lives strewn along the path."

"We immediately become more effective when we decide to change ourselves rather than asking things to change for us."

"We present a dramatically different approach to time management. This is a principle-centered approach. It transcends the traditional prescriptions of faster, harder, smarter, and more. Rather than offering you another clock, this approach provides you with a compass - because more important than how fast you're going, is where you're headed."

"Winning companies focus on giving more value-not just cutting back."

"Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, underline it. No involvement, no commitment."

"Whatever their source, leadership begins with clarity about values what one stands for and the roots of those values are imparted by a sense of family, community, and culture."

"While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions."

"You can't talk your way out of problems that you behaved yourself into."

"You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage - pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically - to say no to other things."

"Your economic security does not lie in your job; it lies in your own power to produce – to think, to learn, to create, to adapt. That’s true financial independence. It’s not having wealth; it’s having the power to produce wealth."

"1. Be Proactive. 2. Begin with the end in mind. 3. Put first things first. 4. Think win-win. 5. Seek first to understand? then to be understood. 6. Synergize. 7. Sharpen the saw."

"A good affirmation has five basic ingredients: it?s personal, it?s positive, it?s present tense, it?s visual, and it?s emotional."

"90 percent of all leadership failures are character failures."

"4 Roles of Leadership. (1) Modeling inspires trust without expecting it. Modeling produces personal moral authority. (2) Pathfinding creates order without demanding it. That means when people identify and are involved in the strategic decisions, particularly on values and high-priority goals, they emotionally connect; the locus of both management and motivation goes from the outside to the inside. Pathfinding produces visionary moral authority. (3) Aligning structures, systems and processes is a form of nourishing the body politic and the spirit of trust, vision, and empowerment. Empowerment produces institutionalized moral authority. (4) Empowering is the fruit of the other three roles ? modeling, pathfinding, and aligning. It unleashes human potential without external motivation. Empowering produces cultural moral authority."