"Peace is not the absence of trouble, but the presence of God."
--Oswald Chambers
"There is no need to plead that the love of God shall fill our hearts as though He were unwilling to fill us...Love is pressing around us on all sides like air. Cease to resist it and instantly love takes possession."
--Amy Carmichael
"A sure knowledge of the spiritual is an open door to rewards attainable and joys unspeakable. To ignore the testimony is to grope in caves of impenetrable darkness; to creep along in fog over hazardous highways. That person is to be pitied who may still be walking in darkness at noonday, who is tripping over obstacles which can be removed, and who dwells in the dim flickering candlelight of insecurity and skepticism. The testimony is the electric light illuminating the cavern; the wind and sun dissipating the fog; the power equipment removing boulders from the road. It is the mansion on the hill replacing the shack in the marshes; the harvester shelving the sickle and cradle; the tractor, train, automobile, and plane displacing the ox team. It is the rich, nourishing kernels of corn instead of the husks in the trough. It is much more than all else, for "this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."
--Spencer W. Kimball
"The failure to take prophetic counsel lessens our power to take inspired counsel in the future. The best time to have decided to help Noah build the ark was the first time he asked. Each time he asked after that, each failure to respond would have lessened sensitivity to the Spirit. And so each time his request would have seemed more foolish, until the rain came. And then it was too late."
--Elder Henry B. Eyring
"If someone you trusted handed you what appeared to be nothing more than sand with the promise that it contained gold, you might wisely hold it in your hand awhile, shaking it gently. Every time I have done that with counsel from a prophet, after a time the gold flakes have begun to appear and I have been grateful."
--Elder Henry B. Eyring
"Next to the committing of sin there is no more fruitful cause of apostasy among the Latter-day Saints than when we put our trust in the arm of flesh. I firmly believe that no man who honestly bows down every day of his life and supplicates God in sincerity for the light of His Holy Spirit to guide him will ever become proud and haughty. On the contrary, his heart will become filled with meekness, humility, and childlike simplicity."
--Heber J. Grant
"It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another."
--Joseph Smith
"I find that when I get casual in my relationships with divinity and when it seems that no divine ear is listening and no divine voice is speaking, that I am far, far away. If I immerse myself in the scriptures the distance narrows and the spirituality returns. I find myself loving more intensely those whom I must love with all my heart and mind and strength, and loving them more, I find it easier to abide their counsel."
--Spencer W. Kimball
" Gratitude is an ennobling quality in man; and he in whose soul it has no place is defective. Gratitude extends its beneficent influence even below the human plane, for it is manifested by the lower animals among themselves and toward man who has received dominion over them. The capacity to feel and the ability to express gratitude or thanks not only reaches below man's mentality and spiritual conception, but exists beyond and above him, for its source is divine. Our old friend Izaak Walton -- he of fishing rod and stream -- expressed this amusing thought: 'God has two dwellings: one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.'" Gratitude is twin sister to humility; pride is a foe to both. The man who has come into close communion with God cannot fail to be thankful; for he feels, he knows, that for all he has and all he is, he is indebted to the Supreme Giver; and one would think that there is no need of commandment in the matter of thanksgiving. Yet we find that because of man's propensities toward forgetfulness and selfishness the Scriptures abound in admonitions to render thanks unto the Lord."
--James Talmage
" Prayer, family prayer in the homes of this and other lands, is one of the simple medicines that would check the dread disease that has eroded the fiber of our character. It is as simple as sunshine and would be as effective in curing our malady. We could not expect a miracle in a day, but in a generation we would have a miracles....I feel satisfied that there is no adequate substitute for the morning and evening practice of kneeling together--father, mother, and children. This, more than heavy carpets, more than lovely draperies, more than cleverly balanced color schemes, is the thing that will make for better and more beautiful homes. There is something in the very posture of kneeling that contradicts the attitudes described by Paul: proud, "heady, highminded.""
--Gordon B. Hinkley
"Twice blessed is the child who, while he or she is so young as perhaps to be unable to comprehend the words, can nevertheless feel the spirit of prayer as a loving mother or a kind father helps with a few words of prayer at bedtime. Fortunate, indeed, are the boys and girls, including those in their teens, in whose homes there is the practice of morning and evening family prayer."I know of no better way to develop a spirit of appreciation in children than for all of the members of the family to kneel to thank the Lord for his blessings. Such humble expression will do wonders to build within the hearts of children a recognition of the fact that God is the source of the precious gifts we have. . . .
"It is a significant thing to teach children how to pray concerning their own needs and righteous desires. As members of the family kneel together in supplication to the Almighty and speak with him of their needs, there will distill into the hearts of children a natural inclination in times of distress and extremity to turn to God as their Father and their friend. Let prayer, night and morning, as a family and as individuals, become a practice in which children grow while yet young. It will bless their lives forever. No parent in the Church can afford to neglect it."
--Gordon B. Hinkley
" Let every family in this Church have prayer together. Now it is important to love individual prayer, but it is a wonderful thing to have family prayer. Pray to your Father in Heaven in faith. Pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can do nothing better for your children than to have them taking their turn in the family prayer, expressing gratitude for their blessings. If they do that while they are young they will grow with a spirit of thanksgiving in their hearts."
--Gordon B. Hinkley
" There is no resting place along the path called faithfulness. The trek is constant, and no lingering is allowed."
--Thomas S. Monson
" When in humility we finally submit our will to His, the universe responds with a certainty and a force that puts all the powers of man and earth to shame."
--Elder John H. Groberg
"I have never liked the phrase that says we’re just made of dust and return to dust. We are energy, which is interchangeable with light. We are fire and water and earth. We are air and atoms and quarks. Moreover, we are dreams, hopes, and fears held together by wisdom and driven apart by folly. So much more than dust. The biblical verse should say, “Miracle thou are and to Mystery returneth.”"
--Robert Fulghum
" The great and important work of teaching the gospel of Christ to the people of the world is incomplete, at best, if it does not also provide for that teaching to those in another sphere and making available to them those gospel ordinances required of all if they are to move forward on the way of eternal life." These temples are there to be used, and those who use them will reap a blessing of harmony in their lives. They will draw nearer unto the Lord, and He will draw nearer unto them."
--Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley
" Faith in Christ blesses our lives because it replaces fear and doubt with the conviction, confidences, and courage to press forward. Faith gives purpose and direction to our lives and gives us hope for the future. Our daily efforts are more productive if we have faith, and we serve more wholeheartedly."
" All those things that people get uptight about and lose their testimonies over, don't matter. What is truly important is that you have faith to move mountains and repentance to change your soul."
--Edwin Allan Gaskin
" Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, ad keeping all the commandments of God."
--Joseph Smith
" Now that the scriptures have been fulfilled, I shall proceed to beat the hell out of thee."
--Quaker after being slapped on one cheek, turning the other cheek, and being slapped again.
" There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun."
--Thomas Browne
" Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. You were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within you. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."Back to the main page.
--Marianne Williamson in A Return to Love, quoted by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inaugural speech
