"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

"Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it."

-Mother Teresa

"My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."

-Abraham Lincoln

"Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be."

-Abraham Lincoln

"When the time for decision arrives, the time for preparation is past."  

-Thomas S. Monson
Ensign, Sept 2014 pg 5

"Life - it is like a voyage to some known point . . . I stand at the rudder, I have chosen my path . . . but God rules the storm and the sea.  He may direct it otherwise; and then, happen what may, it will be the best for me."

-Hans Christian Andersen
The True Story of my Life

"If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world."

-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

"Your body becomes an instrument of your mind and the foundation of your character.  Through life in a mortal body you can learn to control matter, and that will be very important to you through all eternity."

-Boyd K. Packer

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.  I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.  I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children.  I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.  I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.  I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."

-Marjorie Pay Hinckley

"When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, in that moment God will endow us with power."

-President Ezra T. Benson

"Desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions.  The desires we act on determine our changing, our achieving, and our becoming."

Dallin H. Oaks
Desire, Ensign May 2011

"I had a father-in-law who came from difficult circumstances as a young man and he told me several times, 'You have two chances for a happy, eternal family.  The first one is the one you're born into; the second one is the one you create.  And it's the second one that counts.  Don't blow your second chance.'"

Julie S. Beck, BYU-Idaho Devotional April 2013

"For as God bestows any ability or gift upon any of us, he binds us to such as have need of us and as we are able to help."

-John Calvin