Thomas S. Monson
I hope I work effectively, but I never feel I have exhausted what I should be doing... I believe we have a responsibility to be a good influence on others.
Many years ago, it was my opportunity to serve as president of the Canadian Mission. There we had a branch with very limited priesthood. We always had a missionary presiding over the branch. I received a strong impression that we needed to have a member of the branch preside there.
I'm a great believer that the Lord provides us specific experiences to prepare us to deal with some of the challenges that we're going to encounter in our own period of service.
When you see people your own age afflicted and experiencing life-threatening illnesses, I think it prompts you to apply to yourself the philosophy, 'I want to do the best I know how to do every day.'
The drive was brief and the conversation limited, but oh, what a legacy of love! Father never read to me from the Bible about the good Samaritan. Rather, he took me with him and Uncle Elias in that old 1928 Oldsmobile and provided a living lesson I have always remembered.
I have never known Frances to complain once of my Church responsibilities. I have been gone many days and many nights, and I have rarely been able to sit with her in the congregation. But there is no one like her - absolutely no one. She is in every way supportive and is a woman of quiet and profoundly powerful faith.
The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.Collection: Inspirational
When we treat people merely as they are, they will remain as they are. When we treat them as if they were what they should be, they will become what they should be.Collection: People
Happiness comes when we stop complaining about the troubles we have and offer thanks for all the troubles we don't have.Collection: Complaining
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance. Do not be deceived; behind that facade is heartache, unhappiness and pain. .. YOU be the one to make a stand for right, even if you stand alone. Have the moral courage to be a light for others to follow.Collection: Pain
Find joy in the journey.Collection: Journey
So much in life depends on our attitude. The way we choose to see things and respond to others makes all the difference. To do the best we can and then to choose to be happy about our circumstances, whatever they may be, can bring peace and contentment. We can't direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. For maximum happiness, peace, and contentment, may we choose a positive attitude.Collection: Attitude
If you will study the scriptures diligently, your power to avoid temptation and to receive direction of the Holy Ghost in all you do will be increased.Collection: Temptation
Stand for right, even if you stand alone.Collection: Stand Alone
We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. For maximum happiness, peace, and contentment, may we choose a positive attitude.Collection: Attitude
This is my philosophy on all life, not just when it comes to love. All the best things are terrifying, but that's why they're the best things. Nothing worth having comes easy. You have to be afraid to want it, afraid to lose it, afraid to try. If you feel that, then you know you're on to a winner.Collection: Philosophy
Your Heavenly Father loves you-each of you. That love never changes. It is not influenced by your appearance, by your possessions, or by the amount of money you have in your bank account. It is not changed by your talents and abilities. It is simply there. It is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful. God's love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love. It is simply always there.Collection: Father
Don’t limit yourself and don’t let others convince you that you are limited in what you can do. Believe in yourself and then live so as to reach your possibilities. You can achieve what you believe you can. Trust and believe and have faith.Collection: Believe
If you want to give light to others you have to glow yourself.Collection: Inspirational
Through tears and trials, through fears and sorrows, through the heartache and loneliness of losing loved ones, there is assurance that life is everlasting. Our Lord and Savior is the living witness that such is so.Collection: Loneliness
Help others in their race of life. Remember that when you help another up a mountain, you are a little nearer the top yourself.Collection: Helping Others
One day each of us will run out of tomorrows. Let us not put off what is important.Collection: Running
When the time for decision arrives, the time for preparation is past.Collection: Past
The good you have done, the kind words you have spoken, the love you have shown to others, can never be fully measured.Collection: Love You
As we arise each morning, let us determine to respond with love and kindness to whatever might come our way.Collection: Morning
There is no tomorrow to remember if we don’t do something today, and to live most fully today, we must do that which is of greatest importance. Let us not procrastinate those things which matter most.Collection: Matter
Life by the yard is hard; by the inch it's a cinch. Each of us can be true for just one day--and then one more and then one more after that--until we've lived a lifetime guided by the Spirit, a lifetime close to the Lord, a lifetime of good deeds and righteousness.Collection: One Day
Our Heavenly Father is aware of our needs and will help us as we call upon Him for assistance. I believe that no concern of ours is too small or insignificant. The Lord is in the details of our lives.Collection: Father
Raising children, be aware that the piles and piles of laundry will disappear all too soon and that you will, to your surprise, miss them profoundly.Collection: Children
Charity is having patience with someone who has let us down. It is resisting the impulse to become offended easily. It is accepting weaknesses and shortcomings. It is accepting people as they truly are. It is looking beyond physical appearances to attributes that will not dim through time. It is resisting the impulse to categorize others.Collection: People
Stick to a task 'til it sticks to you. . .for beginners are many, but finishers few.Collection: Tasks
In the private sanctuary of one's own conscience lies that spirit, that determination to cast off the old person and to measure up to the statue of true potential.Collection: Determination
We must learn to separate need from greed...We must not allow our yearnings to exceed our earnings.Collection: Greed
The hand of a bride becomes the hand of a mother. Ever so gently she cares for her precious child. Bathing, dressing, feeding, comforting-there is no hand like mother's. Nor does its tender care diminish through the years.Collection: Mother
Prayer can solve more problems, alleviate more suffering, prevent more transgression, and bring about greater peace and contentment in the human soul than can be obtained in any other way.Collection: Prayer
Our thinking will automatically improve when we remember the words of Paul: 'know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the spirit of God dwelleth in you?Collection: Thinking
Your future depends on your Faith.Collection: Your Future
Whatever our calling, regardless of our fears or anxieties, let us pray and then go and do.Collection: Prayer
May we incorporate into our own lives the divine principles which he Joseph Smith so beautifully taught by example, that we, ourselves, might live more completely the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . May our lives reflect the knowledge we have that God lives, that Jesus Christ is His son, that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that we are led today by another prophet of God - even President Gordon B. Hinckley.Collection: Jesus
Turning the pages of scriptural history from beginning to end, we learn of the ultimate pioneer-even Jesus Christ. His birth was foretold by the prophets of old; His entry upon the stage of life was announced by an angel. His life and His ministry have transformed the world. . . . May we ever follow Him.Collection: Jesus
The question each of us must answer is ... What shall I do with Jesus? He Himself has provided us the answer: "Follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do"Collection: Jesus
Recent surveys of Church members have shown a serious erosion in the number of families who have a year's supply of life's necessities. Most members plan to do it. Too few have begun... It is our sacred duty to care for our families, including our extended families.Collection: Religious
When called to the Council of the Twelve, October 4, 1963, he said in the Salt Lake Tabernacle: I think of a little sister, a French-Canadian sister, whose life was changed by the missionaries as her spirit was touched. As she said good-by to me and my wife in Quebec, she said, "President Monson, I may never see the Prophet. I may never hear the Prophet. But President, far better, now that I am a member of this Church, I can obey the Prophet."Collection: Sister
Let us open wide the windows of our hearts, that each family member may feel welcome and 'at home.Collection: Family
It is impossible to stand upright when one plants his roots in the shifting sands of popular opinion and approval.Collection: Roots
God left the world unfinished; the pictures unpainted, the songs unsung, and the problems unsolved, that man might know the joys of creation.Collection: Song
If we are to have the very best Christmas ever, we must listen for the sound of sandaled feet. We must reach out for the Carpenter's hand. With every step we take in his footsteps, we abandon a doubt and gain a truth.Collection: Hands
Times change; years speed by; but Christmas continues sacred.Collection: Years
Our Heavenly Father can appreciate our love for Him by how well we serve Him and how well we serve our fellowmen.Collection: Father