Mormon Musings

Each good man has in himself a quiet place wherein he lives however torn seemingly by the passions of the world. That is his citadel, which must be kept inviolate against assaults. That quiet place must be founded upon a rock and the rock must be a belief, a fervent and passionate belief, in the existence of the ultimate good, and a willingness to put forth his strength against the ultimate evil. -Dr. Foster Kennedy

There is no limit to what you can accomplish in life as long as you don’t care who gets the credit. But you have to really not care, instead of just acting like you don’t care. -Rodney Brown 

The great crisis of life are often like a bolt out of the blue of a Summer day; there is not a moment for preparation. In such crises all that a man has been doing in the way of preparation suddenly bears fruit. He often acts instinctively; he does that which he is in the habit of doing and, because he is in the habit of doing his best and all his instincts prompt him to put forth the best that is in him, he seizes the golden moment and does not discover until afterwards that it was golden. -Hamilton Mabie

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on a seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. -Sir Isaac Newton

 When obedience becomes our goal, it is no longer an irritation; instead of a stumbling block, it becomes a building block. …Obedience leads to true freedom. The more we obey revealed truth, the more we become liberated. President James E. Faust, Ensign, May 1999, p. 47

What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but sleep and feed? A beast, no more. Sure He that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and god-like reason To fust in us unus’d. -Shakespeare (from Hamlet)

If we would only testify of the truth as we see it, it would turn out at once that there are hundreds, thousands, and even millions of men just as we are, who see the truth as we do, are afraid as we are of seeming to be singular by confessing it, and are only waiting, again as we are, for someone to proclaim it. -Leo Tolstoy

Years ago I preferred cleaver people. There was a joy in beholding a mind bearing thoughts quickly translated into words, or ideas expressed in a new way. I find now that my taste has changed. Verbal fireworks often bore me. They seem motivated by self-assertion and self-display. I now prefer another type of person; one who is considerate, understanding of others, careful not to break down another person’s self-respect. .....My preferred person today is one who is always aware of the needs of others, of their pain and fear and unhappiness, and their search for self-respect...I once liked clever people. Now I like good people. Solomon Bennett Freehof  

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! It is an ever fixed mark That looks on tempest and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me be proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. - Shakespeare , Sonnet cxvi

No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God. Orson F. Whitney 

http://mormonthoughts.wordpress.com/2010/11/13/blessings-of-temple-worship/