Character

"I am under the strongest impression, that the most valuable consideration, and that which will be of the most service when we return to the spirit world, will be that of having established a proper and well defined character as faithful and consistent Latter-day Saints in this state of probation."

" . . . establish a character before God that could be relied upon in the hour of trial, and that would fit them to associate with the holy beings and with the Father himself when they have passed into the spirit world."

"Righteous character traits develop within us gradually as we exercise faith and repent of our wrongdoings. Such traits are not the products of accident or chance, neither are they acquired in a day, a week, a month, or a year, but are gradual developments, the result of continued faithfulness to God and to truth, independent of the plaudits or criticisms of men."

"Our character, as Latter-day Saints, should be preserved inviolate, at whatever cost or sacrifice."

- Lorenzo Snow - (Teachings of Presidents of the Church Lorenzo Snow, Lesson 8)

Know My Heart

"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

- Psalms 139: 23-24 -

With Our Hearts Right

"I ask the Lord of Israel to bless the Latter-day Saints and that we may be prepared for the events of the near future, with our hearts right before the Lord."

- Lorenzo Snow - (at the funeral of Franklin D. Richards)

Kindness

"Kindness is the power that God has given us to unlock hard hearts and subdue stubborn souls and bring them to an understanding of His purposes."

"Live in such a way, in love and kindness, that peace and prayer and thanksgiving will be in you homes together."

"It is our duty -- I should say it is our privilege as well as our duty to take sufficient time to surround our children with safeguards and to so love them and earn their love that they will be glad to listen to our advice and counsel."

- George Albert Smith -

Gatsby

"For Daisy was young, and her artificial world was pleasant, cheerful snobbery, and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes."

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy. They . . . smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

"His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him. Somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night . . . Gatsby believed in the . . . future, that year by year recedes before us.  It alluded us then, but that's no matter. Tomorrow, we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther, and one fine morning. So we beat on -- boats against the current -- borne back ceaselessly into the past."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

Persuasion

"Persuasion is an art that begins in charity, not in righteousness."

- Reid Buckley - Speaking in Public

The True Mind-enhancing Drug

"The true mind-enhancing drug that the generation of the 1960s and those of the decades since have been searching for is literature."

- Reid Buckley -