Neal A. Maxwell
Brigham Young observed, "Man's machinery makes things alike" (JD 9:370), while God gives to seemingly like individuals pleasing differences. Secularism is no friend of righteous individuality.Collection: Friendship
Obviously, family values mirror our personal priorities. Given the gravity of current conditions, would parents be willing to give up just one outside thing, giving that time and talent instead to the family.Collection: Giving Up
Therefore, as we strive to become as the Father is and as Jesus is, we are to become more gracious and merciful, more kind and considerate. Even more, we are to do this in a world which does little to encourage such qualities of character.Collection: Jesus
If one is devoid of hope and thanksgiving, he cannot for long remain sinless, for he will, in despair, have slackened his resolve. Feelings of futility foster vulnerability. Self-pity is such a busy stagehand, rearranging the scenery to help sin make its entrance. No wonder the prophets say that without faith in the Lord, there is no hope.Collection: Adversity
Real disciples absorb the fiery darts of the adversary by holding aloft the quenching shield of faith with one hand, while holding to the iron rod with the other (see Eph. 6:16; 1 Ne. 15:24; D&C 27:17). There should be no mistaking; it will take both hands!Collection: Real
Spent time-like a spent bullet-tells us much about its "processor." for we see not only the residual slug, but indicators of how spent time is grooved by a man's soul, a reliable indicator of what a man is like.Collection: Time
Unproductive worry - like Parkinson's proverbial law - tends to expand to fill the time available.Collection: Time
I thank the Savior personally; for bearing all which I added to His hemorrhaging at every pore for all humanity in Gethsemane. I thank Him for bearing what I added to the decibels of His piercing soul cry atop Calvary.Collection: Soul
Regarding trials, including of our faith and patience, there are no exemptions-only variations.Collection: Adversity
When great individuals move so marvelously along the straight and narrow path, it is unseemly of us to call attention to the fact that one of their shoelaces is untied as they make the journey.Collection: Moving
The enlarging of the soul requires not only some remodeling, but some excavating.Collection: Adversity
Eventually, there will not be enough prisons if there are not enough good homes.Collection: Home
A patient willingness to defer dividends is a hallmark of individual maturity.Collection: Maturity
We can hold to the iron rod even if others slip away and a few end up mocking us from "the great and spacious building."Collection: Iron
The cumulative weight of all mortal sins--past, present, and future--pressed upon that perfect, sinless, and sensitive Soul! All our infirmities and sicknesses were somehow, too, a part of the awful arithmetic of the Atonement. (See Alma 7:11-12; Isa. 53:3-5; Matt. 8:17.) The anguished Jesus not only pled with the Father that the hour and cup might pass from Him, but with this relevant citation. 'And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me.' (Mark 14:35-36.)Collection: Jesus
Those of little faith mistake local cloud cover for general darkness. Keeping spiritually intact results in our keeping precious perspective by seeing "things as they really are."Collection: Mistake
I am as I am, And so is a stone; Them that don't like me, Must leave me alone.Collection: Leave Me Alone
When at length we tire of putting people down, this self-inflicted fatigue can give way to the invigorating calisthenics of lifting people up.Collection: Self
The authority of example and considerations of character, unlike pudding, are not whipped up in an instant.Collection: Character
Listen to these wounds of pain put in the form of questions to me by a young woman who had had two abortions: "I wonder about the spirits of those I had aborted, if they were there, if they were hurt? I was under three months each time, but a mother feels life before she feels movement." "I wonder if they are lost and alone?" "I wonder if they will ever have a body?" "I wonder if I will ever have a chance again to bring those spirits back as mine?" Alas, brothers and sisters, "wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41:10).Collection: Life
We are in bondage to that which overcomes us. See also 2 Peter 2:19.Collection: Overcoming
All of us must walk the same strait and narrow path, know the same kind of experiences as those we would seek to lead and to serve. There is not one strait and narrow path for the officers-the chosen-and another for the enlisted men. We are all to experience life "according to the flesh"; there is no other way, for it is the way to immortality and eternal life. Given the resplendent riches of the promised kingdom, why would anyone wish to walk another path than the one that leads us back to our gracious and merciful Father in Heaven?Collection: Life
Selfishness is much more than an ordinary problem because it activates all the cardinal sins! It is the detonator in the breaking of the Ten Commandments.Collection: Selfishness
We must endure the contempt of others without reciprocating that contempt.Collection: Endure
The flame of family can warm us and at the same time be a perpetual pilot light to rekindle us.Collection: Light
A father who finds it difficult to express his love vocally for his children may need, at first, to be humbly obedient in holding family home evenings in order to help him to discover, or to increase, his appreciation for his children. Next can come to him the courage to say I love you to each one.Collection: Love
The unwillingness of most leaders to set standards, to administer feedback when standards are not met, to praise clearly when standards are met, stands in the way of the development of excellence. The leader who makes no demands of his disciples cannot really lead them at all. The sense of new excitement and new challenge generated by the gospel will be blunted by leaders who shield followers from the full demands of fellowship.Collection: Leader
Empathy during agony is a portion of divinity.Collection: Agony
By seeing life's experiences on through to the end, on our small scale we can finally say, as Jesus did on the cross, "It is finished". We too can then have "finished [our] preparations," having done the particular work God gave each of us to do.Collection: Life
Even the good can become careless without the Lord's being there to chasten.Collection: Being There
True discipleship is for volunteers only. Only volunteers will trust the Guide sufficiently to follow Him in the dangerous ascent which only He can lead.Collection: Volunteer
The Lord has said, ‘I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.’ (Isaiah 48:10, 1 Nephi 20:10). He knows, being omniscient, how we will cope with affliction beforehand. But we do not know this. We need, therefore, the refining that God gives to us, though we do not seek or crave such tribulation.Collection: Adversity
The charity of good women is such that their 'love makes no parade'; they are not glad 'when others go wrong'; they are too busy serving to sit statusfully about, waiting to be offended.Collection: Waiting
Naive optimism and pervasive pessimism are both to be avoided, therefore. It's not an easy balance to maintain, to be asked to work away in the Ninevehs of our lives without being so conscious of the coming cataclysm that we are not serious citizens of our communities and nations. By living and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are doing the most relevant thing we can do by way of helping. (There are civic and other chores to be done, of course.) Day in and day out, the gospel is the one thing that is most relevant, and we are to be of good cheer.Collection: Life
One simply cannot come to a cause like the kingdom of God, with its celestial concepts, and not appreciate and identify with what Ammon said: "Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel."Collection: Appreciation
Pray for me to learn quickly what I need to learn.Collection: Needs
Truly we work and live on a streetful of splendid people, whom we are to love and serve even if they are uninterested in us!Collection: People
If the kingdom of God is not first, it doesn’t matter what’s second.Collection: Firsts
Ironically, brothers and sisters, the natural man who is so very selfish in so many ordinary ways is strangely unselfish in that he reaches for too few of the things that bring real joy. He settles for a mess of pottage instead of eternal joy.Collection: Real