Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do.  We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.  And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

-Marianne Williamson
A Return to Love:  Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles

"Life's most persistent and urgent questions is, What are you doing for others?"

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I am like a pencil in [God's] hand.  That is all.  He does the thinking.  He does the writing.  The pencil has nothing to do with it.  The pencil has only to be allowed to be used."

-Mother Teresa

"There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit."

-Ronald Reagan

“I had spent a lot of time figuring out who I was, shaping myself, creating an identity and I thought that identity was something inside of me that I projected outward and when I was suddenly in a world in which nobody knew me and nobody understood me and all those things, I started to realize that who we are is actually reflected back to us by the people around us, by people who love us.

“You are suddenly in a world where nobody understands why you’re there or what you’re doing or who you are - you suddenly start to ask the same questions.

“So I was basically widdled down to nothing.  I felt like I had no self.  The beauty of that – there’s a lesson there, right?  There’s this lesson – that our connections matter, that how we treat others matters, that it affects their identity directly.  And there’s another lesson there as well.  As I lost myself, I actually found myself broken down to a point where I could learn faster than I’ve ever learned in my life."

-Michael Wesch

The End of Wonder in the Age of Whatever

BYU Speeches

"The key is this:  Meet today's problems with today's strength.  Don't start tackling tomorrow's problems until tomorrow.  You do not have tomorrow's strength yet.  You simply have enough for today."

-Max Lucado

"All our senses feed the brain, and if it diets mainly on cruelty and suffering, how can it remain healthy?  Change that diet, on purpose, train mentally to refocus the mind, and one nourishes the brain."

The Zookeeper's Wife
by Diane Ackerman

"Make knowledge of the Scripture your love . . . Live with them, meditate on them, mark them the sole object of your knowledge and inquiries."

-Jerome

"I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught."

-Winston Churchill

"God does not begin by asking us about our ability, but only our availability and if we then prove our dependability, he will then increase our capability."

-Neal A. Maxwell

"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."

-Thomas S. Monson

"Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want what is best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it."

-George MacDonald

"Frequently it is not easy to face up to that which is expected of us.  Many think they cannot do it.  We need a little more faith.  We should know that the Lord will not give us commandments beyond our power to observe.  He will not ask us to do things for which we lack the capacity.  Our problem lies in our fears and in our appetites."

-Gordon B. Hinckley

"There will be noise and people around you most of your waking day.  God hears your silent prayers, but you may have to learn to shut out the distractions because the moment you need the connection with God may not come in quiet times."

-Henry B. Eyring
"Priesthood and Personal Prayer"
Ensign, May 2015

"Who is righteous?  Anyone who is repenting.  No matter how bad he has been, if he is repenting he is a righteous man.  There is hope for him.  And no matter how good he has been all his life, if he is not repenting, he is a wicked man.  The difference is which way you are facing.  The man on the top of the stairs facing down is much worse off than the man on the bottom step who is facing up.  The direction we are facing, that is repentance; and that is what determines whether we are good or bad."

Hugh Nibley
Approaching Zion, pg 301-302

"Square your shoulders and you will find that the path you say you can't walk, you walk.  The load you say you can't bear, you bear, and the sorrow you say you can't handle, you handle.  You are stronger than you think you are."

Jeffrey R. Holland
Atlanta Georgia Mission Conference, April 2016

"You either get bitter or you get better. It's that simple.  You either take what has been dealt to you and allow it to make you a better person, or you allow it to tear you down.  The choice does not belong to fate, it belongs to you."

-Josh Shipp

Self Reliance

"Independence and self-reliance are critical to our spiritual and temporal growth.  Whenever we get into situations which threaten our self-reliance, we will find our freedoms threatened as well.  If we increase our dependence on anything or anyone except the Lord, we will find an immediate decrease in our freedom to act."

-L. Tom Perry, "Becoming Self-Reliant"  Ensign, Nov. 2016

“Whatever level of spirituality we now enjoy in our lives, whatever degree of faith in Jesus Christ we have, whatever strength of commitment or consecration we have, whatever degree of obedience or hope or charity is ours, whatever level of professional skill or ability we may have obtained, it will not be sufficient for the work that lies ahead.  Brothers and Sisters, you and I need to be much better than we are now – in every aspect of our lives.  The scriptures teach us that the world is now and will be in commotion - and we can see it all around us.  Wickedness and darkness will increase.  It seems hard to imagine, but it will.  Yet in that darkening world there will be increased light – divine light.  The Lord Jesus Christ has a great work for us to do with the rising generation.  It’s a greater work than we’ve ever done before –and I know the great work that’s been done here – it’s a greater work than we’ve ever done before.  The Lord is working in power to strengthen teaching and learning in his true and living church.  He’s hastening his work and he’s preparing the earth and his kingdom and he’s preparing us for his return.”

Elder Kim B. Clark

"CES:  The Lord's Educational System for His Church"

"Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our (Heavenly) Father and how familiar his face is to us." 

Ezra Taft Benson, Jesus Christ - Gifts and Expectations, BYU Speech, Dec 1974