QuoteProject
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.
Stephen Covey
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Our perceptions shape our attitudes and behaviors, often leading us to assume that our viewpoint is the only valid one.

This quote by Stephen Covey highlights the importance of recognizing that our personal assumptions about the world significantly influence our attitudes and behaviors. It suggests that we often take our perceptions for granted, viewing them as universal truths, which can lead to misunderstandings and conflicts in how we relate to others and the world around us. Acknowledging that our perspective is just one of many is crucial for personal growth and improved interpersonal relationships.

Themes

PerceptionAssumptionsAttitudeBehaviorTruth

In practice

Example use cases

In a team meeting to discuss project approaches.

More from Stephen Covey

How many on their deathbeds wished they'd spent more time at the office - or watching TV? The answer is, No one.
Stephen CoveyRead
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

Zombies are a great rhetorical prop to talk about people and paranoia, and they are a good vehicle for my misanthropy.
Colson WhiteheadRead
The observations and encounters of a devotee of solitude and silence are at once less distinct and more penetrating than those of the sociable man; his thoughts are weightier, stranger, and never without a tinge of sadness. Images and perceptions which might otherwise be easily dispelled by a glance, a laugh, an exchange of comments, concern him unduly, they sink into mute depths, take on significance, become experiences, adventures, emotions.
Thomas MannRead
The provisions we have made [for our government] are such as please ourselves; they answer the substantial purposes of government and of justice, and other purposes than these should not be answered.
Thomas JeffersonRead
The armies of the day have chased the army of the night, Heaven and earth are filled with purity and light.
RumiRead
The mind is a machine that is constantly asking: What would I prefer? Close your eyes, refuse to move, and watch what your mind does. What it does is become discontent with that-which-is. A desire arises, you satisfy that desire, and another arises in its place.
George SaundersRead
The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized and squeezed into a patter of systems.
Bruce LeeRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.