Saturday, January 5, 2013

"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey

Kindle Edition here.

  • "If we wanted to change the situation, we first had to change ourselves. . . And to change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions."
  • "Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside."
  • "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.”
  • "The way we see the problem is the problem."
  • "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

"The Power of Concentration" by Theron Q. Dumont

Free Kindle edition here.

  • "Concentration makes the will and intellect act in unison."
  • "Most people are imitators and copiers of their past selves."
  • "It is just as easy to be courageous as cowardly. Courage concentrates the mental forces on the task at hand."
  • "No one knows what they can do until they try."

"Swan Song" by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Free Kindle edition here.


  • "She was beautiful, graceful as a poplar, young, innocent, pure, and radiant as a summer dawn. Her smile could charm away the darkest night."
  • "I was acting that day, I remember--I had a foolish, clown's part, and as I acted, I felt my eyes being opened; I saw that the worship of the art I had held so sacred was a delusion and an empty dream; that I was a slave, a fool, the plaything of the idleness of strangers."