Brigham Young
How easy it would be for your leaders to lead you to destruction, unless you actually know the mind and will of the spirit yourselves.
David O. McKayI appreciate and realize the accomplishments, to a certain degree, of this wonderful atomic age in which we are living. Scientific discoveries of today stagger the imagination. Nearly every day we read of almost unbelievable accomplishments. The age of the atom has only begun, and no one knows what exciting developments may yet unfold when the atomic research now in progress is completed.
B. H. RobertsMy brethren and sisters, I rejoice in the largeness of this work of God—this dispensation of the fulness of times. I love it, in part, because of its greatness—in its very bigness there is inspiration. I love to contemplate the puposes of God in their farreaching possibilities. I rejoice to feel that today the children of men are moving up to a higher and truer conception of the things of God.
Joseph SmithI see no faults in the Church, and therefore let me be resurrected with the Saints, whether I ascend to heaven or descend to hell, or go to any other place. And if we go to hell, we will turn the devils out of doors and make a heaven of it. Where this people are, there is good society.
Be wise: be as wise as the generations of this world. In the days of Jesus, those who received this kingdom and the spirit of the kingdom seemed to lose all sight of a temporal salvation; and Jesus said to his disciples, “The children of this world are wiser in their generations than the children of light.” The children of light did not know how to sustain themselves; they did not understand how to preserve themselves and the kingdom with them.
I have heard ministers of the gospel declare that they believed every word in the Bible was the word of God. I have said to them, “You believe more than I do. I believe the words of God are there; I believe the words of the devil are there; I believe that the words of men and the words of angels are there; and that is not all—I believe that the words of a dumb brute are there. I recollect one of the prophets riding, and prophesying against Israel, and the animal he rode rebuked his madness.”
Yet I will say with regard to miracles, there is no such thing save to the ignorant—that is, there never was a result wrought out by God or by any of His creatures without there being a cause for it. There may be results, the causes of which we do not see or understand, and what we call miracles are no more than this—they are the results or effects of causes hidden from our understandings.
It is my highest delight and pleasure to serve God and keep his commandments; there is great delight in the law of the Lord to me, for the simple reasonit is pure, holy, just, and true; and those principles which the Lord has revealed are the only correct principles that man possesses on the earth.
We talk to the Latter-day Saints a great deal, and we wish them to become a thinking people, a people that will reflect and begin to systematize their lives, and know the object of their existence here.