How many on their deathbeds wished they'd spent more time at the office - or watching TV? The answer is, No one.
Stephen CoveyRead
Once we are self-aware, we must choose purposes and principles to live by; otherwise the vacuum will be filled, and we will lose our self-awareness and become like groveling animals who live primarily for survival and propagation. People who exist on that level aren't living; they are "being lived".
Interpretation
What this quote means
Self-awareness leads to conscious choices about how to live, rather than merely existing.
This quote emphasizes the importance of self-awareness in guiding our lives. It suggests that without a conscious selection of values and goals, individuals risk falling into a primitive state, driven merely by survival instincts. Covey warns against a passive existence, encouraging people to actively shape their lives with intention and principles.
Themes
Self-AwarenessChoicesPrinciplesExistenceSurvival
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about personal growth.
More from Stephen Covey
All quotes →If you want to have a more pleasant, cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, empathic, consistent, loving parent. If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee.
Stephen CoveyRead
Listen with your eyes for feelings.
Stephen CoveyRead
If we live out of our memory, we're tied to the past and to that which is finite. When we live out of our imagination, _x000D_ we're tied to that which is infinite.
Stephen CoveyRead
Synergy is the highest activity of life; it creates new untapped alternatives; it values and exploits the mental, emotional, and psychological differences between people.
Stephen CoveyRead
Keep in mind that you are always saying "no" to something. If it isn't to the apparent and urgent things in your life, it is probably to the most fundamental, highly important things.
Stephen CoveyRead
Similar quotes
Some people write heavily, some write lightly. I prefer the light approach because I believe there is a great deal of false reverence about. There is too much solemnity and intensity in dealing with sacred matters; too much speaking in holy tones.
C. S. LewisRead
The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
Leon TrotskyRead
Sometimes you get the cynical person saying, 'Do we really need another book set in Nazi Germany?' But I think you just have to ask, 'Is this a story worth telling?'
Markus ZusakRead
If Heaven and Earth are unable to persist, how could man?
LaoziRead
For many decades - and this was reinforced by the broadcast networks' standards-and-practices department - bad guys on TV had to get their comeuppance, and good guys had to be brave and true and unconflicted. Those were the laws of the business.
Vince GilliganRead
Our plans never turn out as tasty as reality.
Ram DassRead