Top 200 Quotes & Sayings by Jeffrey R. Holland - Page 3

Surely the thing God enjoys most about being God is the thrill of being merciful, especially to those who don't expect it and often feel they don't deserve it.

Jesus has chosen, even in a resurrected, otherwise perfected body, to retain for the benefit of His disciples the wounds in His hands and in His feet and in His side-signs, if you will, that painful things happen even to the pure and the perfect; signs, if you will, that pain in this world is not evidence that God doesn't love you; signs, if you will, that problems pass and happiness can be ours.

Rights are best guarded when each person and group guards for others those rights they wish guarded for themselves.

Just because God is God, just because Christ is Christ, they cannot do other than care for us and bless us and help us if we will but come unto them, approaching their throne of grace in meekness and lowliness of heart. They can't help but bless us. They have to. It is their nature.

No one of us is less treasured or cherished of God than another. I testify that he loves each of us--insecuritie s, anxieties, self-image, and all.

Everything in the gospel teaches us that we can change if we need to, that we can be helped if we truly want it, that we can be made whole, whatever the problems of the past.

God wants us to be stronger than we are--more fixed in our purpose, more certain of our commitments, eventually needing less coddling from Him, showing more willingness to shoulder some of the burden of His heavy load. In short, He wants us to be more like He is and, if you haven't noticed, some of us are not like that yet.

Christlike love is the greatest need we have on this planet... So if love is to be our watchword, as it must be, them by the word of Him who is love personified, we must forsake transgression and any hint of advocacy for it in others.

Only when we see that sacred, unadorned child of our devotion-the Babe of Bethlehem-will we know why the giving of gifts is so appropriate

There is again a living prophet on the earth speaking in the name of the Lord. And how we need such guidance! Our times are turbulent and difficult. We see wars internationally and distress domestically. Neighbors all around us face personal heartaches and family sorrows. Legions know fear and troubles of a hundred kinds.

The Church is not a fast food outlet. We can't always have it our way. Some day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ, and that salvation can only come His way.

Nowhere can anyone find a #? quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his or her own #? soul . We need to turn some things down and turn some things off. We need to be #? quiet .

The ability of the gospel to unite us on common strengths and common truths is one of the great miracles . . . of the gospel.

We declare that one who uses the God-given body of another without divine sanction abuses the very soul of that individual, abuses the central purpose and processes of life.

I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work—and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies.

If you have made covenants, keep them. If you haven’t made them, make them. If you have made them and broken them, repent and repair them. It is never too late so long as the Master of the vineyard says there is time. Please listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit telling you right now, this very moment, that you should accept the atoning gift of the Lord Jesus Christ and enjoy the fellowship of His labor. Don’t delay. It’s getting late.

Christlike love is the greatest need we have on this planet in part because righteousness was always supposed to accompany it. Pure Christlike love flowing from true righteousness can change the world.

There is a line from Dante that says, "The arrow seen before cometh less rudely." President John F. Kennedy put one aspect of the same thought into one of his state of the union messages this way: "The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining." The Boy Scouts say it best of all: "Be prepared." That isn't just cracker-barrel wisdom with us; it is theology. "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear." (D&C 38:30)

How important are money management and finances in marriage and family affairs? Tremendously. The American Bar Association recently indicated that 89 percent of all divorces could be traced to quarrels and accusations over money. Another study estimated that 75 percent of all divorces result from clashes over finances. Some professional counselors indicated that four out of every five families wrestle with serious money problems.

If something is buried in the past, leave it buried. . . . Such dwelling on past lives, including past mistakes, is just not right! It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . In cases of marriage and family, . . . we can end up destroying so many others.

Satan is certainly not subtle in his teachings; why should we be? Whether we are instructing our children at home or standing before an audience in church, let us never make our faith difficult to detect.

No eternal learning can take place without that quickening of the Spirit from heaven.

No one would wish a bad marriage on anyone. But where do we think good marriages come from? They don't spring full blown from the head of Zeus any more than does a good education...Why should a marriage require fewer tears and less toil and shabbier commitment than your job or your clothes or your car?

To give ourselves totally to another person, as we do in marriage, is the most trusting step we take in any human relationship.

True love BLOOMS when we care more about another person than we care about ourselves.

In this long eternal quest to be more like our Savior, may we try to be “perfect” men and women in at least this one way now—by offending not in word, or more positively put, by speaking with a new tongue, the tongue of angels. Our words, like our deeds, should be filled with faith and hope and charity, the three great Christian imperatives so desperately needed in the world today.

No serious courtship or engagement or marriage is worth the name if we do not fully invest all that we have in it and in so doing trust ourselves totally to the one we love. You cannot succeed in love if you keep one foot out on the bank for safety's sake. The very nature of the endeavor requires that you hold on to each other as tightly as you can and jump in the pool together.

Live the gospel as conspicuously as you can. Keep the covenants your children know you have made. Give priesthood blessings. And bear your testimony!

So how do you best respond when mental or emotional challenges confront you or those you love? Above all, never lose faith in your Father in Heaven, who loves you more than you can comprehend. ... Never, ever doubt that, and never harden your heart.

Your love for Jesus Christ and your discipleship in His cause must be the consuming preoccupation and passion of your mortality.

May the joy of our fidelity to the highest and best within us be ours as we keep our love and our marriages, our society and our souls, as pure as they were meant to be.

In a world of unrest and fear, political turmoil and moral drift, I testify that Jesus is the Christ—that He is the living Bread and living Water—still, yet, and always the great Shield of safety in our lives.

I ask for a stonger and more devoted voice... a voice for good, a voice for the gospel, a voice for God.

The race we are really in is the race against sin, and surely envy is one of the most universal of those.

I hope I have a few years left in my 'last days,' but whether I do or do not, I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world, in the most straightforward language I could summon, that the Book of Mormon is true, that it came forth the way Joseph said it came forth and was given to bring happiness and hope to the faithful in the travail of the latter days.

Maybe the purchasing and the making and the wrapping and the decorating - those delightfully generous and important expressions of our love at Christmas - should be separated, if only slightly, from the more quiet, personal moments when we consider the meaning of the Baby (and his birth) who prompts the giving of such gifts.

A noble deed is a step toward God.

It is obvious that the bumper sticker question "What would Jesus do?" will not always bring a popular response.

The crowning characteristic of love is always loyalty

On occasions, global or personal, we may feel we are distanced from God, shut out from heaven, lost, alone in dark and dreary places. Often enough that distress can be of our own making, but even then the Father of us all is watching and assisting. And always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal.

Missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience.

Sometimes it seems especially difficult to submit to "great tribulation" when we look around and see others seemingly much less obedient who triumph even as we weep. But time is measured only unto man, says Alma (see Alma 40:8), and God has a very good memory.

Whatever your struggle, my brothers and sisters-mental or emotional or physical or otherwise-do not vote against the preciousness of life by ending it!

I know we can each do something, however small that act may seem to be. We can pay an honest tithe and give our fast and free-will offerings, according to our circumstances. And we can watch for other ways to help.

Pray earnestly and fast with purpose and devotion. Some difficulties, like devils, do not come out save by fasting and by prayer. Ask in righteousness and you shall receive. Knock with conviction and it shall be opened unto you.

Coveting, pouting, or tearing others down does not elevate your standing, nor does demeaning someone else improve your self-image.

In our time the only restraint left is self-retraint.

Preparatory faith is formed by experiences in the past-by the known, which provides a basis for belief. But redemptive faith must often be exercised toward experiences in the future-the unknown, which provides an opportunity for the miraculous.

Christlike love is the greatest need we have on this planet

What is the best that lies within us? Of how much are we capable? None of us yet knows. An old Arabic legend tells of a rider finding a spindly sparrow lying on its back in the middle of the road. He dismounted and asked the sparrow why his feet were in the air. Replied the sparrow, "I heard the heavens were going to fall today." "And I suppose you think your puny bird legs can hold up the whole universe?" laughed the horseman. "Perhaps not," said the sparrow with conviction, "but one does whatever one can.

We can ...start making our way back to the Father. We should do so with as much haste and humility as we can summon. Along the way we can count our many blessings and we can applaud the accomplishments of others. Best of all we can serve others.

I suppose it goes without saying that negative speaking so often flows from negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults, we speak--or at least think--critically of ourselves, and before long that is how we see everyone and everything. No sunshine, no roses, no promise of hope or happiness. Before long we and everybody around us are miserable.

Whoever you are and wherever you find yourself as you seek your way in life, I offer you "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). Wherever else you think you may be going, I ask you to "come unto Him" as the imperative first step in getting there, in finding your individual happiness and strength and success.

Just believing, just having a molecule of faith--that simple step, when focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, has ever been and always will be not only the first principle of His Eternal Gospel but also the first step out of despair.

Fatherhood is not an easy assignment, but it ranks among the most imperative ever given, in time or eternity.

God never leaves us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges that we face.

In whatever country you live, however young or inadequate you feel, or however aged or limited you see yourself as being, I testify you are individually loved of God, you are central to the meaning of His work, and you are cherished and prayed for by the presiding officers of His Church. The personal value, the sacred splendor of every one of you, is the very reason there is a plan for salvation and exaltation.

Dads, is it too bold to hope that our children might have some small portion of the feeling for us that the Divine Son felt for His Father?

The Atonement of Jesus Christ is rightfully seen as the central fact, the crucial foundation, and the chief doctrine of the plan of salvation, which we are called to teach.

Brothers and sisters, this is a divine work in process, with the manifestations and blessings of it abounding in every direction, so please don’t hyperventilate if from time to time issues arise that need to be examined, understood, and resolved. They do and they will. In this Church, what we know will always trump what we do not know. And remember, in this world, everyone is to walk by faith.