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Who really said it

The quality of your life is the quality of your communication

Written by Tony Robbins b. 1960 · American author, coach and motivational speaker
Verified In copyright

Genuinely his, and from his first book. Wikiquote’s sourced section for Unlimited Power prints the sentence and cites page 198. One caveat worth having: that page number belongs to a later printing rather than the 1986 first edition — the same Wikiquote section cites a page 413, which will not fit the 1986 printing the Internet Archive catalogues at 376 pages, and the section links a 2003 edition of the book.

Last verified 16 Oct 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Verified quote & credit

“The quality of your life is the quality of your communication” Tony Robbins, Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986) — cited by Wikiquote at p. 198 of a later printing.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Anthony Robbins and Simon & Schuster). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Tony Robbins — American author, coach & motivational speaker. Theme: "The quality of your life is the quality of your communication". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The quality of your life is the quality of your communication". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Source
Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement
First published
15 June 1986 · Simon & Schuster, New York
Cited at
Page 198 — in the later printing Wikiquote keys its page numbers to
Verdict
Genuine — the book is certain, the page number is edition-dependent

The quality of your life is the quality of your communication.

Wikiquote lists the sentence on its own, without surrounding text, so no fuller context is reproduced here.

Wikiquote: Anthony Robbins, sourced from Unlimited Power

How we verified this

  • Wikiquote’s sourced section ↗ for Unlimited Power prints this sentence and cites page 198. We read the page’s raw wikitext rather than a summary, so the wording is as Wikiquote states it.
  • The book is independently confirmed: Wikipedia ↗ gives Unlimited Power as Robbins’s first book, published by Simon & Schuster on 15 June 1986, and the Internet Archive catalogue record ↗ gives “New York : Simon and Schuster, 1986,” 376 pages.
  • Why this page hedges the page number rather than the quote: the same Wikiquote section also cites a page 413, which cannot be a 376-page printing, and the section’s header links a later edition of the book. We checked that linked volume — Google Books ↗ confirms it as Unlimited Power: The New Science Of Personal Achievement by Tony Robbins, Simon and Schuster, and presents it as a 2008 printing (Wikiquote’s own link text calls it the 2003 edition). Either way it is not the 1986 first edition, so 198 is a real citation to a later printing.
  • Limit of what we checked: we did not read the book. The Internet Archive copy is lending-restricted and Google Books returned a bot challenge, so page 198 was not confirmed against the book’s own text.
In copyright

Unlimited Power was first published in 1986 and is firmly under United States copyright. The sentence above is quoted as a short excerpt for identification and verification, not as a reproduction of the book.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Context

Why it mattered

Unlimited Power was Robbins’s first book and the one that built his audience, and this sentence is its argument in miniature: that how you talk — to others and to yourself — is not a surface skill but the thing that sets the ceiling on everything else.

It is also the most quotable line in a book full of them, which is why it turns up on slides far more often than the chapter it came from.

How you talk sets the ceiling on everything else.

Read the full story

The attribution here is not in any doubt; the citation is. Quote collections reproduce “p. 198” from Wikiquote without noting that the figure tracks a later printing, and a reader who opens a 1986 hardcover at page 198 may well not find it. That is a small thing, but it is exactly the sort of small thing a citation is supposed to get right.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Wisdom Success Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced quotations from Unlimited Power, with page numbers.
Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

The book: Robbins’s first, published by Simon & Schuster on 15 June 1986.
Internet Archivearchive.org

Catalogue record for the 1986 Simon and Schuster printing, 376 pages.
Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Robbins: born 29 February 1960, author, coach and motivational speaker.
Google Booksbooks.google.com

The volume Wikiquote links for this section’s page numbers — a later printing, not the 1986 first edition.

The author

About Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins

b. 29 February 1960 · American author, coach & motivational speaker

Born Anthony J. Mahavorić in North Hollywood, California, Robbins has worked as a speaker and coach since the late 1970s. Unlimited Power (1986) was his first book and the foundation of the seminar business that followed; Awaken the Giant Within (1991) was the second. Between them they are the source of most of the sentences quoted under his name.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Robbins, Anthony. Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Cited by Wikiquote at page 198 of a later printing.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The quality of your life is the quality of your communication’?” Last verified 16 Oct 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-quality-of-your-life-is-the-quality-of-your/

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