“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.”
“Mortality is a school of suffering and trials. We are here that we may be educated in a school of suffering and of fiery trials, which school was necessary for Jesus, our Elder Brother, who, the scriptures tell us, ‘was made perfect through suffering.’ It is necessary that we suffer in all things, that we may be qualified and worthy to rule, and govern all things, even as our Father in Heaven and His eldest son, Jesus.”
“More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
“Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can—working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!”
“We are all children of a God who knows us, loves us, and is there for us, especially in our sorrow and suffering. To be separated from Him is to be lost.”
“Education, human education, is the leading out and lifting up of the soul into the ripe, full enjoyment of all its powes potential. To educate men and women is to put them in full command of themselves, to completely possess them of their faculties, which are only half possessed until they are educated. Education imparts nothing but discipline and development. It does not increase the number of man's original talents; it adds nothing to the sum of his inherent capabilities; but it improves those talents, it develops and strengthens those capabilities, brightening what is dull, making the crude fine, the clumsy skillful, the small great, and the great still greater. Education supplements creation, and moves next to it in the order of infinite progression.”
“The redemption of Zion is more than the purchase or recovery of lands, the building of cities, or even the founding of nations. It is the conquest of the heart, the subjugation of the soul, the sanctifying of the flesh, the purifying and ennobling of the passions.”