David O. McKay Quotes

Be thankful that sometimes God lets you struggle for a long time before that answer comes. Your character will grow; your faith will increase. There is a relationship between these two: the greater your faith, the stronger your character, and increased character enhances your ability to exercise even greater faith.

Misrepresentation, false propaganda, innuendoes soon sprout into poisonous weeds, and before long the people find themselves victims of a pollution that has robbed them of their individual liberty and enslaved them to a group of political gangsters.

Find a purpose in life so big it will challenge every capacity to be at your best.

The greatest spiritual blessing comes from helping another.

And what is true education? It is awakening a love for truth; giving a just sense of duty; opening the eyes of the soul to the great purpose and end of life. It is not so much giving words, as thoughts; or mere maxims, as living principles. It is not teaching to be honest, because 'honesty is the best policy'; but because it is right. It is teaching the individual to love the good, for the sake of the good; to be virtuous in action because one is so in heart; to love and serve God supremely, not from fear, but from delight in his perfect character.

No man can sincerely resolve to apply to his daily life the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth without sensing a change in his own nature. The phrase, 'born again', has a deeper significance than many people attach to it. This changed feeling may be indescribable, but it is real.

All men who have moved the world have been men who would stand true to their conscience.

As long as the day lasts, let's give it all we got.

When a Father takes the child by the hand, he takes the Mother by the Heart.... The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

No other success [in life] can compensate for failure in the home.

All good things require effort. That which is worth having will cost part of your physical being, your intellectual power, and your soul power—‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’ (Matt. 7:7.) But you have to seek, you have to knock. On the other hand, sin thrusts itself upon you. It walks beside you, it tempts you, it entices, it allures. You do not have to put forth effort. … Evil seeks you, and it requires effort and fortitude to combat it. But truth and wisdom are gained only by seeking, by prayer, and by effort.

I'm going to tell you the most important secret of human life. The most critical need of the human soul is to be kind.

The latest I like to be to meeting is 15 minutes early

The true purpose of life is the perfection of humanity through individual effort, under the guidance of God's inspiration.

Man is a spiritual being, a soul, and at some period of his life everyone is possessed with an irresistible desire to know his relationship to the Infinite. . . . There is something within him which urges him to rise above himself, to control his environment, to master the body and all things physical and live in a higher and more beautiful world.

Next to the bestowal of life itself, the right to direct that life is God's greatest gift to man.

One of my most precious possessions is my memory of a home in which love was supreme, in which I cannot recall ever a cross word having passed between father and mother. We all owe such a blessing to our children.

Seeking the pleasure of conjugality without a willingness to assume the responsibilities of rearing a family is one of the onslaughts that now batter at the structure of the American home. Intelligence and mutual consideration should be ever-present factors in determining the coming of children to the home.

Man's greatest happiness comes from losing himself for the good of others.

Thoughts that most frequently occupy the mind determine a man's course of action.

There is no development of character without resistance, there is no growth of spirituality without overcoming.

True education seeks to make men and women not only good mathematicians, proficient linguists, profound scientists, or brilliant literary lights, but also honest men and women with virtue, temperance, and brotherly love.

The noblest calling in the world is motherhood. True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece, or who can write a book that will influence millions, deserve the plaudits and admiration of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters whose immortal souls will exert influence throughout the ages long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have decayed or been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God.

The greatest comfort in this life is having a close relationship with God.

Pleasure is not the purpose of man's existence. Joy is.

Today, as never before, the issue is clearly defined-liberty and freedom of choice, or oppression and subjugation for the individual and for nations.

Let husband and wife never speak to one another in loud tones,unless the house is on fire.

The character of a child is formed largely during the first twelve years of his life. He spends 16 times as many waking hours in the home as in the school, and 126 times as many hours in the home as in the church. Each child is, to a great degree, what he is because of the ever-constant influence of home environment and the careful or neglectful training of parents. Home is the best place for the child to learn self-control, to learn that he must submerge himself for the good of another. It is the best place in which to develop obedience, which nature and society will later demand.

The kind of life you live, your disposition, your very nature, will be determined by your thoughts, of which your acts are but the outward expression. Thought is the seed of action.

The greatest forces in the world are being used against families and traditional family values. These values are being undermined in subtle and in not-so-subtle ways. Because of this assault on family values, it takes all of your best efforts to fortify your family. It takes hard work and planning. It takes sacrifice. 'In the setting of the family...may I suggest that we give more of ourselves.'

Into the soul of every student I would have instilled the patriotic fervor of Patrick Henry.

Teachings and ideologies subversive to the fundamental principles of this great Republic, which are contrary to the Constitution of the United States, or which are detrimental to the progress of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will be condemned, whether advocated by Republicans or Democrats.

Music is truly the universal language, and when it is excellently expressed how deeply it moves our souls

An unsatisfied appetite for knowledge means progress and is the state of a normal mind.

The home is the basis of a righteous life and no other instrumentality can take its place nor fulfill its essential functions.

The greatest need in the world today is faith in God and courage to do His will.

The aim of education is to develop resources in the child that will contribute to his well-being as long as life endures; to develop power of self-mastery that he may never be a slave to indulgence or other weaknesses, to develop [strong] manhood, beautiful womanhood that in every child and every youth may be found at least the promise of a friend, a companion, one who later may be fit for husband or wife, an exemplary father or a loving intelligent mother, one who can face life with courage, meet disaster with fortitude, and face death without fear.

Motherhood is the one thing in all the world which most truly exemplifies the God-given virtues of creating and sacrificing. Though it carries the woman close to the brink of death, motherhood also leads her into the very realm of the fountains of life and makes her co-partner with the Creator in bestowing upon eternal spirits mortal life.

In the well-ordered home we may experience a taste of heaven.

Anger itself does more harm than the condition which aroused anger.

Gossip bespeaks either a vacant mind or one that entertains jealousy or envy.

Among the immediate obligations and duties resting upon members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today, and one of the most urgent and pressing for attention and action of all liberty loving people, is the preservation of individual liberty.

Children are more influenced by sermons you act than by sermons you preach.

No parent can consistently teach faith in Christ who profanes the name of Deity. Profanity is never heard in the well-ordered home. Swearing is a vice that bespeaks a low standard of breeding. Blasphemous exclamations drive out all spirit of reverence.

Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth can give.

Friendship is a sacred possession. As air, water and sunshine to flowers, trees and verdure, so smiles, sympathy and love of friends to the daily life of man. To live, laugh, love one's friends, and be loved by them is to bask in the sunshine of life.

Sincere prayer implies that when we ask for any virtue or blessing, we should work for the blessing and cultivate the virtue.

The first contributing factor to a happy home is the sublime virtue of loyalty, one of the noblest attributes of the human soul.