“Most of all, revelation requires us to have a sufficient degree of personal righteousness, so that on occasion revelation may come to the righteous, unsolicited.”

“One reason we rush so quickly to the vulgar satisfactions of judgment, and love to revel in our righteous outrage, is that it spares us from the impotent pain of empathy, and the harder, messier work of understanding.”

“It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication; after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.”

“All good work requires self-revelation.”

“No matter how righteous you are, no matter how carefully youcultivate the companionship of the Holy Ghost, there are vast amounts of knowledge which you need to acquireand which you are not going to receive through revelation.”

“If God did not wish us to understand the book of Revelation, He would not have given it to us at all.”