Quotes from Gordon B. Hinckley

A truly educated man never ceases to learn. He never ceases to grow. I hope you women, as you take upon yourselves the burden of rearing families, will never set aside the desire to acquire knowledge.

The way of the Lord is the way of happiness. 'Wickedness never was happiness' [Alma 41:10]. Transgression never was happiness. Sin never was happiness. Disobedience never was happiness. The way of happiness is following the way of the Lord. I believe this with all my heart.

There is nothing that dulls a personality so much as a negative outlook.

When there throbs in the heart of an individual Latter-day Saint a great and vital testimony of the truth of this work, he will be found doing is duty in the Church.

The habit of saying thank you is the mark of a cultivated mind.

We are winning the war against Satan, and the future has never looked brighter.

The work so performed is both remarkable and singular. It is a great work of love.

May heaven's richest blessings rest upon you, my beloved associates. May faith grow in your hearts. May there be love and peace in your homes. May there be food upon your tables and clothing on your backs. May the smiles of heaven warm your hearts and bring comfort in times of trial.

There is no greater blessing that you can have than to stand as a proxy in a great service to those who have gone beyond. And it will be your privilege and your opportunity and your responsibility to live worthy to go to the temple of the Lord and be baptized in behalf of someone else.

Somehow forgiveness, with love and tolerance, accomplishes miracles that can happen in no other way.

I plead with you to control your tempers, to put a smile upon your faces, which will erase anger; speak out with words of love and peace, appreciation, and respect. If you will do this, your lives will be without regret. Your marriages and family relationships will be preserved. You will be much happier. You will do greater good. You will feel a sense of peace that will be wonderful.

Associated with gratitude is virtue. I think they are related because he who is disposed to shun virtue lacks appreciation of life, its purposes, and the happiness and well-being of others.

Do not trade your birthright as a mother for some bauble of passing value. Let your first interest be in your home. The baby you hold in your arms will grow quickly as the sunrise and the sunset of the rushing days.

Never lose faith in your opportunity to lift those who are in need, to give strength to those who are weak, to give encouragement to those who falter by the way.

I remind mothers everywhere of the sanctity of your calling. No other can adequately take your place. No responsibility is greater, no obligation more binding than that you rear in love and peace and integrity those whom you have brought into the world.

I am an optimist! What a wonderful time it is to be alive, here at the turn of a milestone century! With that frame of reference, my plea is that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I am suggesting that as we go through life, we "accentuate the positive." I am asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment and endorse virtue and effort.

We cannot expect to lift others unless we stand on higher ground ourselves.

Put on thy beautiful garments, O daughters of Zion. Live up to the great and magnificent inheritance which the Lord God, your Father in Heaven, has provided for you. Rise above the dust of the world. Know that you are daughters of God, children with a divine birthright. Walk in the sun with your heads high, knowing that you are loved and honored, that you are a part of his kingdom, and that there is for you a great work to be done which cannot be left to others.

I will never get over being thankful to them; I hope that you never get over being thankful to them. I hope that we will always remember them....Let us read again and again, and read to our children or our children's children, the accounts of those who suffered so much.

Everything good that has happened to me, including my marriage, I can trace back to my activity in the church.

Men and women of integrity understand intrinsically that theirs is the precious right to hold their heads in the sunlight of truth, unashamed before anyone. Embodied within this simple principle and character trait rests the foundational virtue of every person and of every society.

Believe in the sacred word of God, the Holy Bible, with its treasury of inspiration and sacred truth; in the Book of Mormon as a testimony of the living Christ. Believe in the Church as the organization which the God of Heaven established for the blessing of His sons and daughters of all generations of time.

Be careful of your friends. They can make you or break you. Be generous in helping the unfortunate and those in distress. But bind to you friends of your own kind. Friends who will encourage you. Stand with you. Live as you desire to live; who will enjoy the same kind of entertainment; and who will resist the evil that you determine to resist.

Here we are [at BYU] doing what is not done in any other major university of which I am aware. We are demonstrating that faith in the Almighty can accompany and enrich scholarship in the secular. It is more than an experiment. It is an accomplishment.