"Don't argue for other people's weaknesses. Don't argue for your own. When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it, and learn from it -- immediately."

"We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions."

"You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage--pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically--to say 'no' to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger 'yes' burning inside. The enemy of the 'best' is often the 'good.'"

"Until a person can say deeply and honestly, I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday, that person cannot say, I choose otherwise."

"You can't talk your way out of what you've behaved yourself into."

"How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most."

"Only after we can learn to forgive ourselves can we accept others as they are because we don't feel threatened by anything about them which is better than us."

"If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster."

"Win win agreements are tremendously liberating. But as the product of isolatedtechniques, they won't hold up. Even if you set them up in the beginning, there isno way to maintain them without personal integrity and a relationship of trust."

"Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us."

"Between stimulus and response is our greatest power - the freedom to choose"

"People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day, little by little, expand that freedom. People who do not will find that it withers until they are literally ''being lived.'' They are acting out scripts written by parents, associates and society."

"The character ethic, which I believe to be the foundation of success, teaches that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character."

"You can’t talk your way out of what you’ve behaved yourself into."

"It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize."

"If you're proactive, you don't have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective expanding experiences. You can consciously create your own."

"Security represents your sense of worth, your identity, your emotional anchorage, your self-esteem, your basic personal strength or lack of it."

"Once you have a clear picture of your priorities that is values, goals, and highleverage activities organize around them."

"To judge individuals before understanding them is a form of human rejection andfeeds upon itself."

"I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a transformer in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader."

"It doesn't matter where you're coming from? all that matters is where you aregoing. You can't talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into."

"Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education"

"Love - THE FEELING - is a fruit of love, the verb."

"As a principle-centered person you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act on you, and evaluate the options. Looking at the balanced whole--the work needs, the family needs, the other needs that may be involved, and the possible implications of the various alternatives -- you'll try to come up with the best solution taking all factors into consideration. We are limited but we can push back the borders of our limitations."

"Lose/Win people bury a lot of feelings. And unexpressed feelings come forth later in uglier ways. Psychosomatic illnesses often are the reincarnation of cumulative resentment, deep disappointment and disillusionment repressed by the Lose/Win mentality. Disproportionate rage or anger, overreaction to minor provocation, and cynicism are other embodiments of suppressed emotion. People who are constantly repressing, not transcending feelings toward a higher meaning find that it affects the quality of their relationships with others."

"Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly."

"Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We cansubordinate feelings to values."

"In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do."

"Until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise"

"Interdependency follows independence."

"In addition to self-awareness, imagination and conscience, it is the fourth human endowment-independent will-that really makes effective self-management possible. It is the ability to make decisions and choices and to act in accordance with them. It is the ability to act rather than to be acted upon, to proactively carry out the program we have developed through the other three endowments. Empowerment comes from learning how to use this great endowment in the decisions we make every day."

"Live out of your imagination, not your history."

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

"A cardinal principle of Total Quality escapes too many managers: you cannot continuously improve interdependent systems and processes until you progressively perfect interdependent, interpersonal relationships."

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

"Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character."

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

"Public behavior is merely private character writ large."

"It's a fact that more people watch television and get their information that way than read books. I find new technology and new ways of communication very exciting and would like to do more in this field."

"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."

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

"Basing our happiness on our ability to control everything is futile"

"The ability to manage well doesn't make much difference if you're not even in the right jungle."

"Happiness can be defined, in part at least, as the fruit of the desire and ability to sacrifice what we want now for what we want eventually"

"People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value."

"Accountability breeds response-ability."

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

"Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall."

"Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change."