Neal A. Maxwell

“He knows that having put his hand to the plow he must not look back, because when we are looking back, we are also holding back.”

“He is conscious of the past and present injustices, but he knows that real remedies are to be found in contemporary Christian compassion, and not in compensatory justice.”

“He knows that in leadership cleverness is not as important as content, that charisma and dash are not as vital as character and doctrine.”

“The “man of Christ” knows that the collapse of systems is always preceded by the collapse of individuals. Camelot began to give way to the world the moment Lancelot and Guinevere gave way to their appetites.”

“He sees that only the gospel can really help us avoid the painful excesses in the tug-of-war between the need for liberty and the need for order. He knows, for instance, that true law enforcement depends on the policing of one’s self. If the sentry of self fails, there are simply not enough other policemen to restrain those who will not restrain themselves, and beating the system will become the system.”

“No part of walking by faith is more difficult than walking the road of repentance. However, with 'faith unto repentance', we can push the roadblock of pride away and beg God for mercy. One simply surrenders, worrying only about what God thinks, not about what 'they' think.”

“Though events set up the defining moments which can evoke profiles in righteousness, outward commotions cannot excuse any failure of inward resolve, even if some seem to unravel so easily.”

“Among the perfect attributes of our living God, one that is and will be a great blessing to us, is His generosity. Important though it is, this quality is one that tends to be less noted.God’s generosity is associated with divine gladness, such as is evoked when His children keep His commandments. He is quick to bless and is delighted to honor the faithful. God’s generosity is expressed also in His long suffering, His being always ready to respond when His children are inclined to feel after Him.”

“Time is clearly not our natural dimension. Thus it is that we are never really at home in time. Alternately, we find ourselves wishing to hasten the passage of time or to hold back the dawn. We can do neither, of course, but whereas the fish is at home in water, we are clearly not at home in time--because we belong to eternity.”

“Most of our suffering comes from sin and stupidity; it is, nevertheless, very real, and growth can occur with real repentance. But the highest source of suffering appears to be reserved for the innocent who undergo divine tutorial training.”

“People who spend their time searching for feet of clay will miss not only the heavens wherein God moves in His majesty and power, but God’s majesty as He improves and shapes a soul.”

“In some precious and personal moments there are brief, sudden surges of recognition of an immortal insight, a doctrinal deja vu. These flashes from the mirror of memory can remind us and inspire us, especially in the midst of life's taxing telestial traffic jams, which can otherwise cause us to grow weary and faint in our minds.”

“As to remedying our personal mistakes, we face no hindering traffic jams on the road of repentance. It is a toll road, not a freeway, and applying Christ’s Atonement will speed us along.”

“As societies trivialize traditional values, we witness a flow of immense suffering. We anguish, for instance, over what happens to the unborn, who cannot vote, and to children at risk. We weep over children having children and children shooting children. Often secular remedies to these challenges are not based on spiritual principles. To borrow a metaphor—secular remedies resemble an alarmed passenger traveling on the wrong train who tries to compensate by running up the aisle in the opposite direction! Only the acceptance of the revelations of God can bring both direction and correction and, in turn, bring a ‘brightness of hope’ (2 Ne. 31:20). Real hope does not automatically ‘spring eternal’ unless it is connected with eternal things!”

“While we must always begin from where we are, we need not stay where we are.”

“When man has reached the periphery of the spiderweb of his own reason and logic, he can find the ropes of revelation upon which he can climb upward forever and ever.”

“These really are our days, and we can prevail and overcome, even in the midst of trends that are very disturbing. If we are faithful the day will come when those deserving pioneers and ancestors, whom we rightly praise for having overcome the adversities in the wilderness trek, will praise today’s faithful for having made their way successfully through a desert of despair and for having passed through a cultural wilderness, while still keeping the faith.”

“God’s grace will cover us like a cloak-enough to provide for survival but too thin to keep out all the cold.”

“God, as a loving Father, will stretch our souls at times. The soul is like a violin string: it makes music only when it is stretched. . . . God will tutor us by trying us because He loves us, not because of indifference!”

“How can we truly understand who we are unless we know who we were and what we have the power to become?”

“The divine reproach Jesus felt so exquisitely, because of His meekly standing in for us, fulfilled yet another prophecy: ‘Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none’ (Ps. 69:20). His heart was broken, as He did ‘suffer both body and spirit’ (D&C 19:18). He trembled because of pain, and yet He, amidst profound aloneness, finished His preparations, bringing to pass the unconditional immortality of all mankind and ‘eternal life for all those who would keep His commandments (Moses 1:39).”

“Perfect love is perfectly patient.”

“What we insistently desire, over time, is what we become.”

“God does not begin by asking our ability, but more of our availability. When we prove our dependability, He will in crease our capability.”

“Our afflictions brothers and sisters often will not be extinguished, they will be dwarfed and swallowed up in the joy of Christ. That’s how we overcome, most of the time. It’s not their elimination, but the placing of them in that larger context.”

“A friend of mine who passed through a most severe trial, when I discussed it with him, he said simply, if it’s fair, it isn’t a trial.”

“The issue for us is trusting God enough to trust also His timing. If we can truly believe He has our welfare at heart, may we not let His plans unfold as He thinks best? The same is true with the second coming and with all those matters wherein our faith needs to include faith in the Lord’s timing for us personally, not just in His overall plans and purposes.”

“Walking and overcoming by faith is not easy. For one thing, the dimension of time constantly constrains our perspective. Likewise, the world steadily tempts us. No wonder we are given instructive words from Jesus about the narrowness and the straightness of the only path available to return home: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). And then he said, “No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Jesus laid down strict conditions.”

“Though we have rightly applauded our ancestors for their spiritual achievements (and do not and must not discount them now), those of us who prevail today will have done no small thing. The special spirits who have been reserved to live in this time of challenges and who overcome will one day be praised for their stamina by those who pulled handcarts.”

“Even the early droplets of selfish decisions suggest a direction. Then the little inflecting rivulets come, merging into small brooks and soon into larger streams; finally one is swept along by a vast river which flows into the “gulf of misery and endless wo” (Hel. 5:12).”

“Our own intellectual shortfalls and perplexities do not alter the fact of God’s astonishing foreknowledge, which takes into account our choices for which we are responsible. Amid the mortal and fragmentary communiques and the breaking news of the day concerning various human conflicts, God lives in an eternal now where the past, present, and future are constantly before Him (see D&C 130:7).”

“Discouragement is not the absence of adequacy but the absence of courage.”

“It is extremely important for you to believe in yourselves not only for what you are now but for what you have the power to become. Trust in the Lord as He leads you along. He has things for you to do that you won't know about now but that will unfold later. If you stay close to Him, You will have some great adventures. You will live in a time where instead of sometimes being fulfilled, many of them will actually be fulfilled. The Lord will unfold your future bit by bit.”

“God will facilitate, but He will not force.”

“How many planets are there in the universe with people on them? We don’t know, but we are not alone in the universe! God is not the God of only one planet!I testify that Jesus is truly the Lord of the universe, “that by [Christ], and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God" D&C 76:24”

“I testify that He is utterly incomparable in what He is, what He knows, what He has accomplished and what He has experienced. Yet, movingly, He calls us His Friends”

“We may never become accustomed to untrue and unjust criticism of us but we ought not to be immobilized by it.”

“Long ago it took a Copernicus to tell a provincial world that this planet was not the center of the universe. Some selfish moderns need a Copernican reminder that they are not the center of the universe either!”

“When in situations of stress we wonder if there is any more in us to give, we can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capacity perfectly, placed us here to succeed”

“It is left to each of us to balance contentment regarding what God has allotted to us in life with some divine discontent resulting from what we are in comparison to what we have the power to become.”

“There are certain mortal moments and minutes that matter. Certain hingepoints in the history of each human. Some seconds are so decisive they shrink the soul, while others are spent, so as to stretch the soul.”

“The true Christian is a communicator.”

“We were never promised precision in this life... With the gift of agency to mankind, life cannot possibly present a perfectly tidy picture. The ambiguities of circumstances are partly, if not largely, the cumulative result of our varied use of our moral agency, but also of the structure of life itself.”

“Ultimate hope and daily grumpiness are not reconcilable.”

“Each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus!”

“Finally, we can accept this stunning, irrevocable truth: Our Lord can lift us from deep despair and cradle us midst any care. We cannot tell him anything about aloneness or nearness!....He who cannot lie, will atteast to our adequacy with the warm words, "Well Done.”

“In the economy of Heaven, God does not send thunder if a still, small voice is enough, or a prophet if a priest can do the job.”

“In order for men to partake of the fruit of felicity,they must plant the seeds thereof.”

“As you submit your wills to God, you are giving Him the only thing you can actually give Him that is really yours to give. Don't wait too long to find the altar or to begin to place the gift of your wills upon it! No need to wait for a receipt; the Lord has His own special ways of acknowledging.”

“Faith in God includes Faith in God's timing.”