Boyd K. Packer
True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior. Preoccupation with unworthy behavior can lead to unworthy behavior. That is why we stress so forcefully the study of the doctrines of the gospel.Collection: Attitude
One thing is very clear: the safest place and the best protection against the moral and spiritual diseases is a stable home and family. This has always been true; it will be true forever. We must keep that foremost in our minds. The scriptures speak of 'the shield of faith wherewith,' the Lord said, 'ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked' (D&C 27:17). This shield of faith is best fabricated in a cottage industry. While the shield can be polished in classes in the Church and in activities, it is meant to be handcrafted in the home and fitted to each individual.Collection: Spiritual
There are few things more powerful than the faithful prayers of a righteous mother.Collection: Inspirational
Latter-day Saints are not obedient because they are compelled to be obedient. They are obedient because they know certain spiritual truths and have decided, as an expression of their own individual agency, to obey the commandments of God. . . . We are not obedient because we are blind, we are obedient because we can seeCollection: Spiritual
Faith, to be faith, must center around something that is not known. Faith, to be faith, must go beyond that for which there is confirming evidence. Faith, to be faith, must go into the unknown. Faith, to be faith, must walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness. If everything has to be known, if everything has to be explained, if everything has to be certified, then there is no need for faith. Indeed, there is no room for it.Collection: Light
Some people think a miracle is only a miracle if it happens instantaneously, but miracles can grow slowly and patience and faith can compel things to happen that otherwise never would have come to pass.Collection: Faith
We are able to feel and learn very quickly through music, through art, through poetry some spiritual things that we would otherwise learn very slowly.Collection: Music
There is a falsehood that some are born with an attraction to their own kind, with nothing they can do about it. They are just 'that way' and can only yield to those desires. That is a malicious and destructive lie. While it is a convincing idea to some, it is of the devil. No one is locked into that kind of life. From our premoral life we were directed into a physical body. There is no mismatching of bodies and spirits. Boys are to become men-masculine, manly men-ultimately to become husbands and fathers. No one is predestined to a perverted use of these powers.Collection: Husband
Perhaps the greatest discovery of my life, without question the greatest commitment, came when finally I had the confidence in God that I would loan or yield my agency to him-without compulsion or pressure, without any duress, as a single individual alone, by myself, no counterfeiting, nothing expected other than the privilege. In a sense, speaking figuratively, to take one's agency, that precious gift which the scriptures make plain is essential to life itself, and say, "I will do as you direct," is afterward to learn that in so doing you possess it all the more.Collection: Life
It has to be an awfully good meeting to beat having no meeting at all.Collection: Beats
You are a child of God. He is father of your spirit. Spiritually you are of noble birth, the offspring of the King of Heaven. Fix that truth in your mind and hold to it. However many generations in your mortal ancestry, no matter what race or people you represent, the pedigree of your spirit can be written on a single line. You are a child of God!Collection: Kings
We live in a day when the adversary stresses on every hand the philosophy of instant gratification. We seem to demand instant everything, including instant solutions to our problems. . .It was meant to be that life would be a challenge. To suffer some anxiety, some depression, some disappointment, even some failure is normal.Collection: Disappointment
I bear witness of the power of the priesthood given to the Church to protect us and guide us. And because we have that, we have no fear of the future. Fear is the opposite of faith. We move forward, certain that the Lord will watch over us, particularly in the family.Collection: Moving
It was meant to be that life would be a challenge. To suffer some anxiety, some depression, some disappointment, even some failure is normal. Teach our members that if they have a good, miserable day once in a while, or several in a row, to stand steady and face them. Things will straighten out. There is great purpose in our struggle in life.Collection: Life
An organist who has the sensitivity to quietly play prelude music from the hymnbook tempers our feelings and causes us to go over in our minds the lyrics which teach the peaceable things of the kingdom. If we will listen, they are teaching the gospel, for the hymns of the Restoration are, in fact, a course in doctrine!Collection: Music
A testimony of the hope of redemption is something which cannot be measured or counted. Jesus Christ is the source of that hope.Collection: Jesus
Family time is sacred time and should be protected and respected.Collection: Sacred
One of the adversary's sharpest tools is to convince us that we are no longer worthy to pray. No matter who you are or what you may have done, you can always pray.Collection: Convince Us
Husbands and wives should understand that their first calling-from which they will never be released-is to one another and THEN to their children.Collection: Children
Like most things of great worth, knowledge which is of eternal value comes only through personal prayer and pondering. These, joined with fasting and scripture study, will invite impressions and revelations and the whisperings of the Holy Spirit. This provides us with instruction from on high as we learn precept upon precept.Collection: Prayer
If our view is limited to mortal life, some things become unbearable because they seem so unfair and so permanent.Collection: Views
Faith is the power, obedience the sacrifice, love the means, Christ the reason.Collection: Mean
We are not obedient because we are blind, we are obedient because we can see.Collection: Blind
The gospel teaches us to be happy, to have faith rather than fear, to find hope and overcome despair, to leave darkness and turn toward the light of the everlasting gospel.Collection: Light
Happiness is inseparably connected with decent, clean behavior.Collection: Behavior
Things we cannot solve, we must survive.Collection: Adversity
Some worry endlessly over missions that were missed, or marriages that did not turn out, or babies that did not arrive, or children that seem lost, or dreams unfulfilled, or because age limits what they can do. I do not think it pleases the Lord when we worry because we think we never do enough or that what we do is never good enough....Some needlessly carry a heavy burden of guilt which could be removed through confession and repentance.Collection: Dream
Largely because of television, instead of looking over into that spacious building, we are, in effect, living inside of it. That is your fate in this generation. You are living in that great and spacious building.Collection: Fate
Faith is a real power, not just an expression of belief.Collection: Inspirational
There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful.Collection: Teacher
Keep the fire of your testimony of the restored gospel and your witness of our Redeemer burning so brightly that our children can warm their hands by the fire of your faith.Collection: Children
Tolerance is a virtue, but like all virtues, when exaggerated, it transforms itself into a vice. We need to be careful of the “tolerance trap” so that we are not swallowed up in it. The permissiveness afforded by the weakening of the laws of the land to tolerate legalized acts of immorality does not reduce the serious spiritual consequence that is the result of the violation of God’s law of chastity.Collection: Spiritual
The ultimate end of all activity in the Church is to see a husband and his wife and their children happy at home, protected by the principles and laws of the gospel, sealed safely in the covenants of the everlasting priesthood. Husbands and wives should understand that their first calling-from which they will never be released-is to one another and then to their children.Collection: Children
To suffer some anxiety, some depression, some disappointment, even some failure is normal.Collection: Disappointment
You always hold the key of repentance to unlock the prison door. If they throw the word diversity at you, grab hold of it and say, "I am already diverse, and I intend to stay diverse." If the word is tolerance, grab that one, too, saying, "I expect you to be tolerant of my lifestyle-obedience, integrity, abstinence, repentance." If the word is choice, tell them you choose good, old-fashioned morality.Collection: Integrity
If you stumble, rise up, go on.Collection: Goes On
Our whole social order could self-destruct over the obsession with freedom disconnected from responsibility; where choice is imagined to be somehow independent of consequences.Collection: Independent
If you understand the great plan of happiness and follow it, what goes on in the world will not determine your happiness.Collection: Goes On
Life moves all too fast. When you feel weak, discouraged, depressed, or afraid, open the Book of Mormon and read.Collection: Moving
If you are burdened with depressing feelings of guilt or disappointment, of failure or shame, there is a cure.Collection: Depressing
Just as chalk can be removed from a chalkboard, with sincere repentance, the effects of our transgression can be erased through the atonement of Jesus Christ.Collection: Jesus
In many places it is literally not safe physically for youngsters to go to school. And in many schools, and its becoming almost generally true, it is spiritually unsafe to attend public schools. Look back over the history of education to the turn of the century and the beginning of the educational philosophies, pragmatism and humanism were the early ones, and they branched out into a number of other philosophies which have led us now into a circumstance where our schools are producing the problems that we face.Collection: Philosophy
Prayer is your personal key to heaven.Collection: Inspirational
The study of doctrine and the teaching of doctrine will change behavior more than the study of behavior will change behavior.Collection: Teaching
The ultimate purpose of every teaching, every activity in the Church is that parents and their children are happy at home, sealed in an eternal marriage, and linked to their generations.Collection: Children
Reverence invites RevelationCollection: Missionary
No one of us can survive in the world of today, much less what it will become, without personal inspiration.Collection: Inspiration
Everyone is tested. One might think it is unfair to be singled out and subjected to a particular temptation, but this is the purpose of mortal life—to be tested. And the answer is the same for everyone: we must, and we can, resist temptations of any kind.Collection: Thinking
No pain will last forever. It is not easy, but life was never meant to be either easy or fair. Repentance and the lasting hope that forgiveness brings will always be worth the effort.Collection: Inspirational
Despite the opposition, trials, and temptations, you need not fail or fear.Collection: Temptation