Quotes from Jeffrey R. Holland

When life is hard, remember - we are not the first to ask, 'Is there no other way?

In a dating and courtship relationship, I would not have you spend five minutes with someone who belittles you, one who is constantly critical of you, one who is cruel at your expense and may even call it humor. Life is tough enough without the person who is supposed to love you leading the assault on your self-esteem, your sense of dignity, your confidence, and your joy. In this person's care, you deserve to feel physically safe and emotionally secure.

Think the best of each other, especially of those you say you love. Assume the good and doubt the bad.

Your Father in heaven knows your name and knows your circumstance. He hears your prayers. He knows your hopes and dreams, including your fears and frustrations. And He knows what you can become through faith in Him.

God doesn't care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and, with His help, where you are willing to go.

However late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don't have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ's Atonement shines.

I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgement bar of God that I declared to the world, in the most straightforward language I could summon, that the Book of Mormon is true.

If you are lonely, please know you can find comfort . If you are discouraged, please know you can find hope . If you are poor in spirit, please know you can be strengthened . If you feel you are broken, please know you can be mended .

Even if you cannot always see that silver lining on your clouds, God can, for He is the very source of the light you seek. He does love you, and He knows your fears. He hears your prayers. He is your Heavenly Father, and surely He matches with His own the tears His children shed.

I testify that no one of us is less treasured or cherished of God than another. I testify that He loves each of us—insecurities, anxieties, self-image, and all. He doesn't measure our talents or our looks; He doesn't measure our professions or our possessions. He cheers on every runner, calling out that the race is against sin, not against each other.

And if those children are unresponsive, maybe you can't teach them yet, but you can love them. And if you love them today, maybe you can teach them tomorrow.

My own great-grandfather, who said simply enough, "No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.

In our moments of pain and trial, I guess we would shudder to think it could be worse, but without the atonement it not only could be worse, it would be worse.

For 179 years [The Book of Mormon] has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other religious history – perhaps like no other book in any religious history- and still it stands." Jeffrey R. Holland

In this long eternal quest to be more like our Savior, may we try to be "perfect" men and women in at least this one way now—by offending not in word, or more positively put, by speaking with a new tongue, the tongue of angels. Our words, like our deeds, should be filled with faith and hope and charity, the three great Christian imperatives so desperately needed in the world today.

Be a woman of Christ. Cherish your esteemed place in the sight of God. He needs you. This church needs you. The world needs you. A woman's abiding trust in God and unfailing devotion to things of the Spirit have always been an anchor when the wind and the waves of life were fiercest.

Everything in the gospel teaches us that we can change if we need to, that we can be helped if we truly want it, that we can be made whole, whatever the problems of the past.

I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are the Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him?

I suppose no one is as handsome or as beautiful as he or she wishes, or as brilliant in school or as witty in speech or as wealthy as we would like, but in a world of varied talents and fortunes that we can't always command, I think that makes even more attractive the qualities we can command--such qualities as thoughtfulness, patience, a kind word, and true delight in the accomplishment of another. These cost us nothing, and they can mean everything to the one who receives them.

I suppose it goes without saying that negative speaking so often flows from negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults, we speak--or at least think--critically of ourselves, and before long that is how we see everyone and everything. No sunshine, no roses, no promise of hope or happiness. Before long we and everybody around us are miserable.

Sometimes it seems especially difficult to submit to "great tribulation" when we look around and see others seemingly much less obedient who triumph even as we weep. But time is measured only unto man, says Alma (see Alma 40:8), and God has a very good memory.

Fighting through darkness and despair and pleading for the light is what opened this dispensation. It is what keeps it going, and it is what will keep you going.

Imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. This must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it.

I believe we have all been created for greater things than we can comprehend. The times call for great things, but great things in the noblest and most redemptive sense are predicted upon tolerance, love, respect, understanding, dignity, prayer, God.