Top 165 Quotes & Sayings by David O. McKay - Page 3

Thoughts that most frequently occupy the mind determine a man's course of action.

I believe that only through a truly educated citizenry can the ideals that inspired the Founding Fathers of our nation be preserved and perpetuated.

But there is a beauty every girl has—a gift from God, as pure as the sunlight, and as sacred as life. It is a beauty that all men love, a virtue that wins all men's souls. That beauty is chastity. Chastity without skin beauty may enkindle the soul; skin beauty without chastity can kindle only the eye. Chastity enshrined in the mold of true womanhood will hold true love eternally.

Sincere prayer implies that when we ask for any virtue or blessing, we should work for the blessing and cultivate the virtue.

An essential virtue is humility. ... The principle of humility and prayer leads one to feel a need of divine guidance. Self-reliance is a virtue, but with it should go a consciousness of the need of superior help-a consciousness that as you walk firmly in the pathway of duty, there is a possibility of your making a misstep; and with that consciousness is a prayer, a pleading that God will inspire you to avoid that false step

An unsatisfied appetite for knowledge means progress and is the state of a normal mind.

The greatest forces in the world are being used against families and traditional family values. These values are being undermined in subtle and in not-so-subtle ways. Because of this assault on family values, it takes all of your best efforts to fortify your family. It takes hard work and planning. It takes sacrifice. 'In the setting of the family...may I suggest that we give more of ourselves.'

I never think of death: I am too busy thinking of life.

The character of a child is formed largely during the first twelve years of his life. He spends 16 times as many waking hours in the home as in the school, and 126 times as many hours in the home as in the church. Each child is, to a great degree, what he is because of the ever-constant influence of home environment and the careful or neglectful training of parents. Home is the best place for the child to learn self-control, to learn that he must submerge himself for the good of another. It is the best place in which to develop obedience, which nature and society will later demand.

A man who cannot control his temper is not very likely to control his passions.

No man can sincerely resolve to apply to his daily life the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth without sensing a change in his own nature. The phrase, 'born again', has a deeper significance than many people attach to it. This changed feeling may be indescribable, but it is real.

The first contributing factor to a happy home is the sublime virtue of loyalty, one of the noblest attributes of the human soul.

What-e're thou art, Act well thy part.

The true purpose of life is the perfection of humanity through individual effort, under the guidance of God's inspiration.

[One] principle that actuated the lives of the fathers who founded our Constitution was faith in God.

That home is most beautiful in which you find each person striving to serve the other.

[Liberty] is freedom of choice, a divine gift, an essential virtue in a peaceful society.

Peace springs from righteousness in the soul, from upright living.

I have but one thought in my heart for the young folk of the Church and that is that they be happy. I know of no other place than home where more happiness can be found in this life. It is possible to make home a bit of heaven; indeed, I picture heaven to be a continuation of the ideal home.

True liberty in individuals consists in the enjoying of every right that will contribute to one's peace and happiness, so long as the exercise of such a privilege does not interfere with the same privilege in others.

In the well-ordered home we may experience a taste of heaven.

Out of the homes of America will come the future citizens of America, and only as those homes are what they should be will this nation be what it should be.

This age is fraught with limitless perils, as well as untold possibilities.

The greatest spiritual blessing comes from helping another.

All men who have moved the world have been men who would stand true to their conscience.

The home is the basis of a righteous life and no other instrumentality can take its place nor fulfill its essential functions.

True motherhood is the noblest call of the world, and we look with sorrow upon the practice here in our own United States of limiting families, a tendency creeping into our own Church.

Among life's sweetest blessings is fellowship with men and women whose ideals and aspirations are high and noble. Next to a sense of kinship with God comes the helpfulness, encouragement, and inspiration of friends.

Next to the bestowal of life itself, the right to direct that life is God's greatest gift to man.

When the husband and wife are healthy, and free from inherited weaknesses and diseases that might be transmitted with injury to their offspring the use of contraceptives is to be condemned.

The real test of any church or religion is the kind of men it makes.

Slander is poison to the soul.

There is no development of character without resistance, there is no growth of spirituality without overcoming.

True Christianity is love in action. There is no better way to manifest love for God than to show an unselfish love for your fellow men. This is the spirit of missionary work

True Christianity is love in action.

If our young people could but glimpse it, it would be the most powerful spiritual motivation of their lives!

Today, as never before, the issue is clearly defined-liberty and freedom of choice, or oppression and subjugation for the individual and for nations.

This is the number one responsibility of the Latter-day Saints - to get in the struggle to preserve freedom. Everywhere that Communism succeeds, missionary work, temple work, everything the Church does, dies. Your number one responsibility is to preserve freedom.

The world is hungry to hear the truth. ... We have it. Are we equal to the task-to the responsibility God has placed upon us?

Gossip bespeaks either a vacant mind or one that entertains jealousy or envy.

No other success [in life] can compensate for failure in the home.

Everyone is possessed with an irresistible desire to know his relationship to the Infinite.

Adversity itself may lead toward and not away from God and spiritual enlightenment; and privation may prove a source of strength if we can but keep a sweetness of mind and spirit.

The Constitution of this government was written by men who accepted Jesus Christ as the Savior of mankind. Let men and women in these United States then continue to keep their eyes centered upon Him who ever shines as a Light to all the world.

Seeking the pleasure of conjugality without a willingness to assume the responsibilities of rearing a family is one of the onslaughts that now batter at the structure of the American home. Intelligence and mutual consideration should be ever-present factors in determining the coming of children to the home.