Top 276 Quotes & Sayings by Brigham Young - Page 3

To gain the spiritual ascendancy over ourselves, and the influences with which we are surrounded, through a rigid course of self-discipline, is our first consideration, it is our first labor, before we can pave the way for our children to grow up without sin unto salvation.

Every accomplishment, every refined talent, every useful attainment in mathematics, music, and in all sciences, and art belong to the Saints.

If I do not know the will of my Father, and what He requires of me in a certain transaction, if I ask Him to give me wisdom concerning any requirement in my life, or in regard to my own course, or that of my friends, my family, my children, or those that I preside over, and get no answer from Him, and then do the very best that my judgement will teach me, He is bound to own and honor that transaction, and He will do so to all intents and purposes.

After men have got their exaltations and their crowns--have become Gods, even the sons of God--are made Kings of kings and Lords of lords, they have the power then of propagating their species in spirit; and that is the first of their operations with regard to organizing a world. Power is then given to them to organize the elements, and then commence the organization of tabernacles.

The difference between God and the Devil, is that God creates and organizes, while the whole study of the Devil is to convince children that light meat tastes good.

The principle of love within us is an attribute of the Deity, and it is placed within us to be dispensed independently according to our own will.

All I have to do is keep my spirit, feelings and conscience like a sheet of blank paper, and let the Spirit and power of God write upon it what He pleases. When He writes, I will read; but if I read before He writes, I am very likely to be wrong

This is loving your neighbour as ourselves; if he needs help, help him; and if he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill his blood on the earth in order that he may be saved, spill it.

It is for us to do those things which the Lord requires at our hands, and leave the result with him.

Take a Nicodemus and put a Joseph Smith's spirit in him, and what do you have? Take a Da Vinci or a Michelangelo or a Shakespeare and give him a total knowledge of the plan of salvation of God and personal revelation and cleanse him and take a look at the statues he will carve and the murals he will paint and the masterpieves he will produce. Take a handel with his purposeful effort, his superb talent, his earnest desire to properly depict the story, and give him inward vision of the whole true story and revelation, and what a master you will have!

If I had the choice of educating a boy or a girl, I would educate the girl. If you educate a boy, you educate one, but if you educate a girl, you educate a generation.

The spirit of truth will do more to bring persons to light and knowledge, than flowery words.

If I have one wish which is greater than another, it is, if I had the power, to make men do right; to make them stop their swearing, their lying, their deceiving, to stop trying to injure the innocent, and begin to be honest and upright in all their dealings with one another and honor the name of the Deity.

Every day is judgment day-use it.

You might prove doctrine from the Bible till doomsday, and it would merely convince a people, but would not convert them. You might read the Bible from Genesis to Revelations, and prove every iota that you advance, and that alone would have no converting influence upon the people. Nothing short of a testimony by the power of the Holy Ghost would bring light and knowledge to them -- bring them in their hearts to repentance. Nothing short of that would ever do.

The idea that the Lord our God is not a personage of tabernacle is entirely a mistaken notion. He was once a man. Brother Kimball quoted a saying of Joseph the Prophet, that he would not worship a God who had not a Father; and I do not know that he would if be had not a mother; the one would be as absurd as the other. If he had a Father, he was made in his likeness. And if he is our Father we are made after his image and likeness.

In the beginning, after this earth was prepared for man, the Lord commenced his work upon what is now called the American continent, where the Garden of Eden was made. In the days of Noah, in the days of the floating of the ark, he took the people to another part of the earth; the earth was divided, and there he set up his kingdom

Every organization of our government, the best government in the world, is crumbling to pieces. Those who have it in their hands are the ones who are destroying it. How long will it be before the words of the prophet Joseph will be fulfilled? He said if the Constitution of the United States were saved at all it must be done by this people. It will not be many years before these words come to pass.

When you get up in the morning, before you suffer yourselves to eat one mouthful of food, call your wife and children together, bow down before the Lord, ask him to forgive your sins, and protect you through the day, to preserve you from temptation and all evil, to guide your steps aright.

As to your families my counsel is, never lay down your authority to a wife or child, but treat them so kindly they will never want to leave you.

I love the Constitution and government of this land, but I hate the damned rascals that administer the government.

When man desires to live as long as a tree, his diet will be fruit.

A lawyer's duty is to read the law well himself, then tell the people what it is, and let them act upon it.

I wanted to thunder and roar out the Gospel to all nations. It burned in my bones like fire pent up... Nothing would satisfy me but to cry abroad in the world, what the Lord was doing in the latter days.

Every time the enemy throws us off our guard, and we give way to temptation, he gains so much; he weakens us and strengthens himself; when we resist temptation, it strengthens the Saints and weakens the enemy.

Brother Cannon remarked that people wondered how many wives and children I had. He may inform them that I shall have wives and children by the million, and glory, and riches, and power, and dominion, and kingdom after kingdom, and reign triumphantly

Which would you part with first -- your tobacco, your whiskey, or your religion?

Of the time that is allotted to man here on the earth there is none to lose or waste. After suitable rest and relaxation there is not a day, hour or minute that we should spend in idleness, but every minute of every day of our lives we should strive to improve our minds and to increase the faith of the holy Gospel, in charity, patience, and good works, that we may grow in the knowledge of the truth as it is spoken and prophesied of and written about.

I don't care about my character here on earth.I don't care about what other people think or say about me, all I care about is my standing before the Lord.

All we have to do is to go onward and upward, and keep the commandments of our Father and God; and he will confound our enemies.

The gifts of the Gospel are given to strengthen the faith of the believer.

Some of you may ask, ?Is there a single ordinance to be dispensed with? Is there one of the commandments that God has enjoined upon the people, that he will excuse them from obeying?' Not one, no matter how trifling or small in our own estimation. No matter if we esteem them non-essential, or least or last of all the commandments of the house of God, we are under obligation to observe them.

The time has been in Israel under the law of God, the celestial law, or that which pertains to the celestial law, for it is one of the laws of that kingdom where our Father dwells, that if a man was found guilty of adultery, he must have his blood shed, and that is near at hand. But now I say, in the name of the Lord, that if this people will sin no more, but faithfully live their religion, their sins will be forgiven them without taking life

Angels are those beings who have been on an earth like this, and have passed through the same ordeals that we are now passing through. They have kept their first estate far enough to preserve themselves in the Priesthood. They did not so violate the law of the Priesthood and condemn themselves to the sin against the Holy Ghost as to be finally lost. They are not crowned with the celestial ones. They are persons who have lived upon an earth, but did not magnify the Priesthood in that high degree that many others have done who have become Gods, even the sons of God.

While brother Joseph was referring to the provinces of God, I was led to reflect that there is no act, no principle, no power belonging to the Deity that is purely philosophical. The birth of the Saviour was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood - was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers.

Now, there is no harm in a teapot, even if it contains tea, if it is let alone.

Miracles, or those extraordinary manifestations of the power of god, are not for the unbeliever; they are to console the Saints, and to strengthen and confirm the faith of those who love, fear, and serve God.

The Christian world, I discovered, was like the captain and crew of a vessel on the ocean without a compass, and tossed to and fro whithersoever the wind listed to blow them. When the light came to me, I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness

The Lord created you and me for the purpose of becoming Gods like Himself; when we have been proved in our present capacity, and been faithful with all things He puts into our possession. We are created, we are born for the express purpose of growing up from the low estate of manhood, to become Gods like unto our Father in heaven. That is the truth about it, just as it is. The Lord has organized mankind for the express purpose of increasing in that intelligence and truth, which is with God, until he is capable of creating worlds on worlds, and becoming Gods, even the sons of God

If you want to know what to do with a thief that you may find stealing, I say kill him on the spot, and never suffer him to commit another iniquity.

All the difference between men and angels is, men are passing through the day of trial that angels have already passed through.

If you want to know what to do with a thief that you may find stealing, I say kill him on the spot, and never suffer him to commit another iniquity. I will prove by my works whether I can mete out justice to such persons, or not. I would consider it just as much my duty to do that, as to baptize a man for the remission of his sins.

We must not love the world, nor the things of the world, until the world is sanctified and prepared to be presented to the Father with the Saints upon it; then they will inhabit it for ever and ever.

I know just as well what to teach this people and just what to say to them and what to do in order to bring them into the celestial kingdom...I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they may not call Scripture. Let me have the privilege of correcting a sermon, and it is as good Scripture as they deserve. The people have the oracles of God continually.

Will you stop drinking whiskey? Let me plead with you to do so. And if the sisters would not think it oppressive, I would ask them to not drink quite so much strong tea.

I do not know of any, excepting the unpardonable sin, that is greater than the sin of ingratitude.

How shall we know that we obey [God]? There is but one method by which we can know it, and that is by the inspiration of the Spirit of the Lord witnessing unto our spirit that we are His, that we love Him, and that He loves us. It is by the spirit of revelation we know this.

[Our] first and foremost duty [is] to seek the Lord until we open the path of communication from God to our own soul.

Prepare yourselves for two weeks from tomorrow; and I will tell you now, that if you will tarry with your husbands, after I have set you free, you must bow down to it, and submit yourselves to the celestial law. You may go where you please, after two weeks from tomorrow; but, remember, that I will not hear any more of this whining.

I do not want "Mormonism" to become popular; I would not, if I could, make it as popular as the Roman Catholic Church is in Italy, or as the Church of England is in England, because the wicked and ungodly would crowd into it in their sins.

It is impossible to unite Christ and Baal -- their spirits cannot unite, their objects and purposes are entirely different; the one leads to eternal life and exaltation, the other to death and final destruction.

Anger should never be permitted to rise in our bosoms, and words suggested by angry feelings should never be permitted to pass our lips. 'A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger'.

The present Constitution, with a few alterations of a trifling nature, is just as good as we want; and if it is sustained on this land of Joseph, it will be done by us and our posterity.

The best remedy for anger is delay.

Emma took the revelation, on polygamy supposed she had all there was; but Joseph had wisdom enough to take care of it, and he had handed the revelation to Bishop Whitney, and he wrote it all off... She went to the fireplace and put it in, and put a candle under it and burnt it, and she thought that was the end of it, and she will be damned as sure as she is a living woman. Joseph used to say that he would have her hereafter, if he had to go to hell for her, and he will have to go to hell for her as sure as he ever gets her.

This intelligence must endure . . . . The glory and intelligence that God has prepared for the faithful, no man knoweth. Should not this fill every heart with peace and joy - that there is no end to the progress of knowledge?

It's a lot more common now for someone to know a Mormon rather than just know of Mormons out in Utah, ... We seem more normal. We're not as exotic.

If you go on a mission to preach the gospel with lightness and frivolity in your hearts, looking for this and that, and to learn what is in the world, and not having your minds riveted - yes, I may say riveted - on the cross of Christ, you will go and return in vain...Let your minds be centered on your missions, and labor earnestly to bring souls to Christ.

When the Lord fights the battles of the saints, he does it so effectually that nobody gets nervous but the enemy

Our religion will not clash with nor contradict the facts of science in any particular.