Quotes from Gordon B. Hinckley Archives - Gordon B. Hinckley

Excellence

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:56:23 +0000

“My plea to each of you is that we constantly take the position that every one of us can do better than we are doing. We are in a constant search for excellence. That search must be continuous and never ending. It must be consuming and unrelenting….

In this highly competitive world no one can stand still. There must be constant improvement. There must be wrenching thought, there must be frank and at times brutal discussion, there must be unusual effort in the search for excellence.”

(Search for Excellence,” Bonneville International Corporation Executives, February 6, 1989.)

Purpose of the Church

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:10:16 +0000

“The Church is the great teacher and builder of values. Its precepts are designed to lead men and women along the way of immortality and eternal life, to make their lives more complete, more rich and happy whle moving through this vale of tears, and in preparing them for the beauties and wonders of that which lies ahead. Keep faith with the Church. It is true. It is divine. He who stands at its head is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world. It is the church of the Almighty that carries the name of His divine Son. Its earthly leaders are those who are called of God under a plan that He has put in place.”

(”To a Man Who Has Done What This Church Expects of Each of Us,” BYU 1995-96 Speeches, October 17, 1995, p. 52.)

Plan of Salvation

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:02:40 +0000

“We do not succeed, I believe, until the Spirit of the Lord reaches down into the heart of the people and touches them with that conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Firstborn of the Father, the Only Begotten in the flesh, He who gave His life for each of us. I can’t comprehend, in terms of eternities and the blessings of eternities, the magnitude of the Atonement, but I can sense it and appreciate it in a measure atleast, and the older I grow–and I am getting pretty ancient–the more certain I feel that when all is said and done, that is the key to everything else. That is the heart of the eternal plan of salvation. We lived before we came here. We are here for a purpose. We shall live after we die, and all of it is a part of eternity, and the key to everlasting life is the atonement wrought by the Savior.”

(England Birmingham Missionary Meeting, August 29, 1995.)

Miracles

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:55:35 +0000

“I have seen miracles in my time, my brothers and sisters. The greatest miracle of all, I believe, is the transformation that comes into the life of a man or a woman who accepts the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and tries to live it in his or her life.”

(Vacavill /Santa Rosa California Regional Conference, May 21, 1995.)

Enmity & Reconciliation

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:49:18 +0000

If there be any who nurture in their hearts the poisonous brew of enmity toward another, I plead with you to ask the Lord for strength to forgive. This expression of desire will be of the very substance of your repentance. It may not be easy, and it may not come quickly. But if you will seek it with sincerity and cultivate it, it will come. And even though he whom you have forgiven continues to pursue and threaten you, you will know you have done what you could to effect a reconciliation. There will come into your heart a peace otherwise unattainable. That peace will be in the peace of Him who said: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will our Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15.) (Be Thou an Example [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981], pp. 50-51.)

Charity

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:48:59 +0000

If there be any within the sound of my voice who have harbored grudges, who have let hatred develop in their hearts one toward another, I ask you to make the effort to turn around. Hatred always fails and bitterness always destroys, but “charity never faileth.” (1 Cor 13:8) (“‘Charity Never Faileth,'” Ensign, November 1981, p. 98.)

Forgiveness

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:46:42 +0000

“How difficult it is for any of us to forgive those who have injured us. We are all prone ot brood on the evil done us. That brooding becomes as a gnawing and destructive canker. Is there a virtue more in need of application in our time than the virtue of forgiving and forgetting? There are those who would look upon this as a sign of weakness. Is it? I submit that it takes neither strength nor intelligence to brood in anger over wrongs suffered, one’s abilities in planning retribution. There is no peace in the nursing of a grudge. There is no happiness in living for the day when you can “get even.”

(”‘Of You It is Required to Forgive,’” Ensign, November 1980, p. 62.)

Determing the Truthfulness of the Book of Mormon

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:54:39 +0000

“As has been demonstrated for a hundred and fifty years, the truth of the book will not be determined by literary analysis or by scientific research, although these are reassuring and most welcome. The truth will be determined today and tomorrow, as it has been throughout the yesterdays, by the reading of it in a spirit of reverence and respect and prayer. .”

(”‘Praise to the Man,’” BYU Devotional Speeches of the Year, November 4, 1979, p. 205).

Witness of the Book of Mormon

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:53:01 +0000

“Today, a century and a half after its first publication, [the Book of Mormon] is more widely read than at any time in its history. . . Its appeal is as timeless as truth, as universal as mankind. It is the only book that contains within its covers a promise that by divine power the reader may know with certainty of its truth. Its origin is miraculous; when the story of that origin is first told to one unfamiliar with it, it is almost unbelievable. But the book is here to be felt and handled and read. No one can dispute its presence. All efforts to account for its origin, other than the account given by Joseph Smith, have been shown to lack substance. It is a record of ancient America. It is a scripture of the New World, as certainly as the Bible is the scripture of the Old. Each speaks of the other. Each carries with it the spirit of inspiration, the power to convince and to convert. Together they become two witnesses, hand in hand, that Jesus is the Christ, the resurrected and living Son of the living God.”

(”‘An Angel from on High, the Long, Long Silence Broke,’” Ensign, November 1979, pp. 7-8.)

The Voice of Faith

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:36:50 +0000

“When doubts arise, when tragedies strike, the quiet voice of faith is heard in the stillness of the night as certain and reassuring as the polar star in the heavens above.”

(Gordon B. Hinckley, Stand a Little Taller, Eagle Gate: 2001, p. 239)