Richard L. Evans

Richard L. Evans

Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (October 8, 1953 – November 1, 1971)

First Council of the Seventy (October 7, 1938 – October 8, 1953)

General Conference Addresses

October 1971 General Conference
- Should the Commandments Be Rewritten?
  - “Beginning with the Ten Commandments may be as good a place as any. It would be well to read and reread them and not spend life trying to convince ourselves that they really don’t mean what they say.”
  - “We all make choices every day. We all have to live with the results of the choices we make. It’s just that plain. It isn’t a question of quibbling or hairsplitting or arguing about the mysteries or brooding about the things God hasn’t yet told us, while neglecting the things he has told us. Let’s stop quarreling with the commandments and the requirements and just face the facts.”
  - “It doesn’t matter what people call things. It matters what they are—what they do.”
  - “Pride is one of the principal barriers to repentance, because we can’t correct an error without first admitting a mistake.”
April 1971 General Conference
- Where Are You Really Going?
  - “Every day is part of eternity. What happens here and now is forever important.”
  - “If someone tells you, my beloved young friends, that you can set the commandments of God aside without realizing the results—if someone tells you that, then you may know that you are listening to someone who doesn’t know, or isn’t telling you the truth.”
October 1970 General Conference
- We Are Going to Be What We Live Like
  - “Work is a principle, a privilege, a blessing—not a curse—but an absolute essential, a physical and spiritual necessity.”
  - “Your Father in heaven doesn’t deal in theory. What he has said is so. Trust him. Trust him who gave you life to tell you the truth.”
April 1970 General Conference
- One Small Step
  - “Temptation is everywhere. The opportunities to do evil and to do good are everywhere, but we shouldn’t tempt temptation.”
  - “If we don’t want to do wrong, we shouldn’t even entertain the idea. If we don’t want temptation to follow us, we shouldn’t act as if we are interested. No one ever fell over a precipice who never went near one.”
October 1969 General Conference
- This You Can Count On
  - “There isn’t any way to cheat nature, to bypass law, to run away from life. The commandments haven’t been repealed; the laws of morality, the spiritual laws, the laws of life are still in force and effect.”
  - “Don’t let others drag you down, and don’t drag yourself down. No matter what cynical or immoral or even honestly mistaken people may say, don’t let them destroy your faith or your virtue, or lead you to a lower way of life.”
April 1969 General Conference
- Innocent They Come
  - “Let every parent, every teacher—and all of us—teach truly so that no one whom we should have taught can ever, here or hereafter, accusingly say, “Why didn’t you teach me? Why didn’t you tell me?””
October 1968 General Conference
- Two Roads
  - “We ought to be angry about evil and never be complacent, never let it quietly see into our surroundings. But we ought not to be angry and resentful against good advice, against reasonable restraint, against the counsels God has given. Stubborn, blind, brash anger, going ahead against all safeguards and danger signs, is an utterly shortsighted and self-destructive anger.”
April 1968 General Conference
- Keep Close in Counsel
  - “When a person of much experience and much responsibility fails to seek or accept counsel, he has arrived at a precarious place. When a person of inexperience feels he doesn’t need to listen, doesn’t need to learn, he too has arrived at a precarious place.”
  - “Our Father has not left us alone, and when we go against the counsel of the still, small voice of conscience, we have reason to regret.”
October 1967 General Conference
- The Tabernacle: A Century Old
  - “Well, the Tabernacle was many years before its time, but it is still one of the wonders of the world, architecturally, artistically, acoustically, spiritually, and an evidence of the faith and foresight of our fathers. God bless them and their memories.”
April 1967 General Conference
- If a Thing Is Right
  - “Some say there is no moral question on how we physically live our lives. But isn’t it a moral question to abuse what God has given?”
  - “The pursuit of excellence requires the best of all our effort. Life is for learning, and the lessons are clearly there to learn. The rules, the basic laws of life, have been given. The choice is ours.”
October 1966 General Conference
- Build Life for Service
  - “We are on earth, with the God-given gift of life, with the opportunity of living here and now, not at some other time, but in this time, with these people, with these problems, with great purpose, great opportunities, great responsibilities.”
  - “This is not a time for unpreparedness. Dull tools are not much in demand. We had better sharpen ourselves.”
  - “All men have problems. All of us personally have problems. There is no perfection on this earth, but there are still eternal truths that we can count on and for which we are accountable.”
April 1966 General Conference
- The Test of Love
  - “Service is a verb, that life is a verb; for it is in doing, in living, in learning, and not just in words that we perform our purpose. No one really proves himself or his principles in neutrality or indifference or inaction. No one proves himself by merely thinking or simply sitting.”
  - “Anyone who would induce someone to do that which it is unworthy to do, or to take advantage, or rob someone of virtue, or embarrass, or hurt, really doesn’t love the person he professes to love. What he feels under such circumstances is something less than love. The proving is in the doing.”
  - “Either we live pure lives or we don’t. Either we think pure thoughts or we don’t. Purity isn’t simply a noun. It is a verb. It is the living of a certain kind of life. It is the thinking of certain kinds of thoughts. Its proof is in keeping the commandments.”
  - “Abstract qualities of character don’t mean much in the abstract. It is how we live, how we serve, how we teach our children, what we do from day to day that both indicate what we are and determine what we are; and all the theory and all the speculation, all the quoting of scripture, all the searching of the mysteries, and all the splitting of hairs, and all the knowledge of the letter of the law don’t in the final and saving sense amount to very much unless we live the gospel, unless we keep the commandments, unless we prove the principles, unless we live lives of effectiveness, sincerity, and service.”
  - “No one’s life is his own. Too much of others has gone into the making of all of us.”
  - “We cannot hurt ourselves without hurting others. A sorrow, an illness, a disgrace, an accident, trouble, or difficulty of any kind—any loss to loved ones is a loss to family and friends. We are too much a part of one another for this not to be so.”
  - “It is important to believe; it is important to be; but it is also important to do.”
October 1965 General Conference
- Of Influence on Children in the Home
  - “It is in the home that children should first learn love, responsibility, and respect. In the home they should learn the balance of liberty and law.”
  - “In a day when laws are publicly flaunted, and when such flaunting is seemingly not only sometimes condoned but even encouraged in some quarters, it is more important than ever to teach our children. If their every whim is satisfied, they may never learn the difference between what is theirs and what is others and may never learn the principle of self-control.”
  - “If nature were to violate law as men do, we could not be assured a succession of the seasons, nor a harvest, nor our daily sustenance, nor any order events.”
  - “As parents there is no limitation on our responsibility to teach our children, to use all the wise and understanding influence we have to teach them the commandments, to teach them causes and consequences.”
April 1965 General Conference
- How Much Is This All Worth?
  - “With all the many things that men are finding, it would seem that bedrock answers should not be so elusive. Indeed, they are not, but the answers go back to the commandments of God, to the principles given by our Savior, to what has been revealed through the prophets, to that which gives peace and high purpose, and the assurance of everlasting life.”
  - “Sooner or later we learn that the commandments are self-enforcing. In all things there are causes and consequences. In all things there are standards, and all that we haven’t yet reached or realized we must arrive at by repentance and improvement. There is no way except the Lord’s way.”
April 1964 General Conference
- The Measure of What Is Good
  - “Now since eternity is forever, and since life is going to be lived one way or another everlastingly, and since what we do here has its effect on our eternal opportunities, we ought frequently to do some self-searching.”
  - “One of life’s greatest lessons is to learn that there are causes and consequences. God has given us our free agency and will not violate it, but everything we do has its effect on our everlasting life.”
  - “The practical and the physical are intermingled with the spiritual. We are a practical Church. Life is a practical matter. So is eternal life. There are laws and commandments and physical facts that pertain to peace and progress and health and happiness, and I cannot conceive of a Loving Father’s not being interested in everything that pertains to his children—what they do, what they eat, what they think, what they learn, how they live, their health, their happiness, their character, their conduct.”
October 1963 General Conference
- Communication
  - “The matter of communication between God and man, between a loving Father and his children, becomes a matter of primary importance—for life is a search for all of us—a search for its purpose and meaning—a search for the answers to questions, to problems—answers that will satisfy the yearnings of our hearts, the reaching of our minds. These are answers that can only come from a divine source.”
  - “What gracious and all-wise Administrator of heaven and earth would ignore the problems of the present or leave his children to grope alone in life?”
  - “Not only do we need communication with our Father in heaven, but we need communication and understanding with one another. So often we misjudge men. We misjudge motives; we believe rumors, and not only believe them, but sometimes add to them and pass them on.”
October 1962 General Conference
- Correlation
  - “There is no presently defined limit as to how much we can enlarge or expand the curriculum. It is inclusive, but does not exclude the possibility of adding anything that should be in it.”
  - “With it becoming more and more difficult to keep the balance of life, to keep the spirit of prayer and spirituality in public places, it becomes increasingly important that our instruction and activity and learning and lives be full and effective from the first influence of a mother’s arms to the latest opportunity of life.”
April 1962 General Conference
- This We Believe
  - “No matter how many times an error is repeated, it is still an error. We believe that we ourselves are the best source of what we believe, as are other men of what they believe, and to those interested we should like to give the simple facts.”
  - “It does not seem a strange thing that God would speak to his children in the present as well as he would speak to them in the past. Certainly we do not need his guidance less today. What loving father would hold himself altogether aloof from his sincerely seeking children?”
October 1961 General Conference
- “Elimination of the Insignificant”
  - “These the Church must have: the flexibility to change, to meet conditions as they come, with firmness of principles and of instruction and of gospel precepts and commandments, never tampering with the solid foundations, but ever keeping flexible in meeting current conditions and being discriminating as between what is superstructure and what is bedrock foundation, and always being prepared to make the necessary adjustment between the two.”
April 1961 General Conference
- Toward a Balanced Life
  - “I should like to plead with you to have faith. The Lord will not leave you alone. Have faith in freedom, in the future, in God, in yourselves, in things to come, and in the wisdom of preparing well.”
  - “Have faith in tomorrow, but use well today.”
  - “May I suggest that you keep flexibility in life, along with a steadfast firmness. Life does change. Many things change. We have to learn to change in some things, and we have to learn to distinguish between what we should change and what we should not change—for the basic fundamentals are still irrevocably there.”
  - “Nothing ever does itself. Nothing ever memorizes itself. Nothing ever accomplishes itself—without the requisite effort.”
  - “Respect and character and common convictions will compensate for many other things; nothing else will compensate for these. Love will not last long without respect and character and common convictions.”
  - “I do not know who in mortality, among men, would have the wisdom to choose one commandment, or several, and set aside some others. This would be presuming to set our wisdom against that which God has given. Go with his way all the way.”
October 1960 General Conference
- Eternal Opportunities
  - “The Church is going forward, world-wide—in the building of buildings, in missionary endeavor, and in all else—and in our private and personal lives, young and old, we must also individually have the faith to go forward. It takes courage; it takes prayer and planning and work and faith; but there are glorious eternal opportunities; and we must not wait in uncertainty or succumb to it.”
April 1960 General Conference
- Answers to the Important Questions
  - “All of us have a responsibility for all of our influence with others, for all of the ideas we let loose, for the total effect of our teaching and our influence on all others.”
  - “I would plead with you to open the doors—the doors of your minds and your hearts, and listen to what they have to say, and then decide—for there is always freedom for the search.”
October 1959 General Conference
- The Ultimate Objective
  - “The whole intent of scripture is one of establishing our relationship with God, our Father, and with his Son, our Savior, and with the eternal plans and purposes for each and all of us, and our relationships to life—and to one another also.”
  - “To help us to decide, he has given us standards, advice, laws, rules. And they are not arbitrary, unrealistic rules, but are simply counsel from a loving Father, who knows us, who knows our nature. It is not his purpose that his children should be unhappy. No father intends to have his children unhappy. And for this reason he has given us commandments for our health and happiness, and peace and progress and quiet conscience.”
  - “The commandments are not old-fashioned, out-dated, or merely man-made. They apply to our own as to other ages. And whenever we do anything basically against them, we pay a price—not because someone has said so, but because we are what we are, and because we are irrevocably affected by the very laws of life. No matter what someone says, and no matter who would set them aside, there are still heartaches and heartbreaks and inescapable consequences for those who lie and cheat and bear false witness; for those who are immoral and unfaithful to loved ones; for those who abuse themselves physically, who indulge appetites, who acquire harmful habits; for those who set aside sure and safe standards, who are coarse in conduct, and run contrary to the commandments, to the basic laws of life.”
  - “To find peace, the peace within, the peace that passeth understanding—men must live in honesty, honoring each other, honoring obligations working willingly, loving and cherishing loved ones, serving and considering others, with patience, with virtue, with faith and forbearance, with the assurance that life is for learning, for serving, for repenting, and improving.”
April 1959 General Conference
- The Motive
  - “The motive is happiness; it is peace; it is progress; it is everlasting life, and not just a few short days or a few short years. It is a motive of such consequence and such endlessness that it transcends all else. It is this for which we do all we do, this for which we gather, this for which we teach, encourage, and bear witness to each other, this for which we remind each other of these great and everlasting things of life.”
  - “The life each of us has is, after all, the sum and substance of all that we have in time and in eternity. And I think no intelligent man would ever deliberately do anything which would not make him happy. I cannot think of an intelligent man’s doing what would make him unhappy. I think when we err, we err in that we lose our sense of values or our sense of direction, or do not quite have in mind what will make us happy or unhappy.”
October 1958 General Conference
- A Reaffirmation: “We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet”
  - “It is the burden of the prophets always to speak what the Lord God saith, no matter who likes it or who does not, or what one would wish to be the truth. It takes a kind of courage beyond what most men have reason to reach down for.”
  - “We shall be no better than we are. We are no better than the tithing we pay, no better than the teaching we do, no better than the service we give, no better than the commandments we keep, no better than the lives we live, and we shall have a bright remembrance of these things and we shall, in a sense, lie down in the midst of what we have done when that time comes, and never in my life have I felt more fully to say with all the earnestness of my soul, We thank thee, O God, for a prophet, to guide us in these latter days.”
  - “There is safety in counsel: counsel with our children, with the family, with our friends, with our Father in heaven, and not attempt to live life alone and to make the decisions alone, but to strengthen each other, and encourage each other, and go forward and do what there is to be done and follow the living leadership as the prophet interprets for us the great principles and commandments of all time.”
April 1958 General Conference
- Life and Peace and Voices from the Past
  - “I think that one of the worst things we could say of any man is that there is not light in him.”
  - “The time when men need things is when they need them. The time when a man needs nourishment is when he is hungry. The time when youth need counsel may be a very perishable time. It may be this very night and not when it is convenient, not tomorrow, not next week.”
  - “Do not tempt temptation. None of us knows his own strength. We should not flit around the edge of anything that we should not flit around the edge of, unless we want to hazard what hanging too near the edge hazards. Do not tempt temptation.”
  - “We have no right to go near temptation, or in fact to do or say a thing that we cannot honestly ask the blessing of the Lord upon, neither to visit any place where we would be ashamed to take our sister or sweetheart.”
  - “There are consequences in all things. As surely as we live the law we shall reap the rewards of living the law. As surely as we break the law we shall pay some penalties.”
April 1957 General Conference
- With What We Know
  - “Sometimes we would like to believe that there is less responsibility upon us than there is for the outcome of our lives.”
  - “There are some considerations that all of us must soberly think of in accepting personal responsibility for the keeping of the commandments, for the choices we make, for how we use the freedom God has given us, for he will not force any of us to become what we are not willing to pay the price of becoming.”
October 1956 General Conference
- The Common Heritage We Have
  - “We believe in the acceptance of all truth, but not all theory. I have spent a good many years in my life in academic walls. I have a profound respect for scholars and scholarship and science and scientists, the ablest among whom would be the first to admit that their findings are still in flux, and that there is yet infinitely much to be discovered.”
  - “Patience, faith, conforming our lives to truth, the keeping of the commandments, trust in the eternal future—the assurance that the most meaningful things in life are everlasting, and a patient search and seizing upon what the soul and the spirit with its imprint upon the soul tells us to be truth—these are required of us.”
  - “Our Father in heaven is not an umpire who is trying to count us out. He is not a competitor who is trying to outsmart us. He is not a prosecutor who is trying to convict us. He is a Loving Father who wants our happiness and eternal progress and everlasting opportunity and glorious accomplishment, and who will help us all he can if we will but give him, in our lives, the opportunity to do so with obedience and humility and faith and patience.”
April 1956 General Conference
- Through Diligence and Obedience
  - “It isn’t learning or the love of learning, or knowledge, or the pursuit of any subject that would take from a man his faith, but it is failure to keep the commandments, the failure of a man to feed all sides of himself.”
  - “A man can have the pure love of learning and seek for it insatiably, and still keep a simple faith if he will keep the commandments, if he will feed his spirit, if he will be patient, and sweet in humility, and not commit himself to quick conclusions or tentative theories.”
  - “We don’t altogether know what faith is, or prayer, and the ultimate meaning or power of them. We don’t altogether understand all the commandments, but the limitations of our knowledge should not keep us from observing them and using them, as we pursue learning and the love of learning, keeping the commandments of God and keeping close to him and his truth, in a well-balanced life, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and using it as our standard as the measure of all things.”
October 1955 General Conference
- The Choir Tour
  - “We found no insurmountable barrier of language or of geography to understanding among men. We found nothing that could prevent sincere and honest people from taking one another to the hearts of each other, in peace, in honor, and in understanding.”
April 1955 General Conference
- Unity in the Home
  - “One of the greatest elements of joy and peace and effectiveness in life is the unity of parents in a home; and with my young friends who are contemplating entering into this most important of all relationships, that of marriage, I would plead this day to think of this: No marriage has a right to be made, which, at its making, has less than the prospect of lasting everlastingly. No marriage at its making, has the right to impose the penalty upon a home of pulling children two ways at once. It is not fair to the children. It is not fair to the community. It is not fair to the future. It is difficult enough to teach children when both parents are pulling in the same direction, but when the two people that children have the most right to look to for guidance are each telling them something basically different, and are each persuading them on a different course in a different way, it has in it the seeds of trouble and discontent and frustration and unhappiness and ineffectiveness in life.”
  - “I would leave this with you as one of the greatest elements, one of the indispensable elements of happiness: unity in the home.”
October 1954 General Conference
- We Are Not Alone in Life
  - “You who are discouraged, whose obligations are heavy, whose best efforts somehow seem to fall short of success; you who have been falsely dealt with; you who have met reverses and disappointments, you who have lost heart: There is a kind and just and merciful Father in heaven to whom you can turn, and who will see that you lose nothing that should have been yours. He can bring peace to your hearts, and restore faith and purpose. You are not alone.”
April 1954 General Conference
- The Future Before Us
  - “Be honest, clean, chaste, humble. Keep your lives well-balanced. Always reserve some of your time and means to the things of the spirit and to the service of your Father in heaven as well as to the things of the mind and the things of physical sustenance. Work, study, and pray. Keep an open mind to truth; keep the faith; live so as to have a quiet conscience. The rewarding way of life is to keep the commandments. The hard way of life is to live contrary to conscience and contrary to the commandments.”
October 1953 General Conference
- Keep the Faith
  - “If you and my Father in heaven will accept me as I am, with your help and his, I shall earnestly endeavor to be better than I am or have ever been.”
April 1953 General Conference
- With Faith—And Without Fear
  - “Keep to a life well-balanced. Keep some of your time and means for the service of the Lord. Study the things of God as well as the other things that you must study to qualify yourselves for certain activities, and go forth with faith, with trust. I think the world is going on for some time. There is great work to be done. Our building program, our temple in Europe, and other things seem to me to be the evidence that this Church believes in the future and I say to you young people, go forth and live your lives with faith without fear, reserving judgment where you need to, and trusting to the Lord God to lead you into all truth.”
October 1952 General Conference
- Repentance
  - “I should like to make this plea to all of us: that we do not wait for another prophet to come to tell us what we already know. I think if we shall miss realizing our highest happiness and possibilities and opportunities and progress and peace and development, it will not be because of what we do not know; it will be because of what we ignore, for I believe verily that the Lord God has given us in his plan and purpose a knowledge of every principle that is essential to our happiness and salvation and to the realizing of our highest possibilities here and hereafter.”
  - “Repentance should be a very popular principle. It has not always been so. Prophets have been stoned and ridiculed and rejected for proclaiming the need for it. But it is the one great, peace-giving principle that is open to him who has erred. It is the principle that is open to all of us that makes it possible to improve.”
April 1952 General Conference
- Cause for Encouragement
  - “Encouragement to our young people in the uncertainties they face. I should like to say to them before I close that our Father in heaven sent us here not to fail but to succeed, and he has made it possible for us to succeed. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and he knows the circumstances and uncertainties we face. It is his declared purpose to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life, and to give us joy, if we will, and he hasn’t presented any impossible set of circumstances or any impossible plan or purpose for us to achieve.”
October 1951 General Conference
- Our Ratio of Responsibility
  - “Every generation is a relay station to pass on the great, eternal truths to the next generation, and I pray that we may do so and that no part of this eternal message may stop at our relay point but may be continually passed on to the next generation—to our children and our children’s children.”
  - “I think we should be peculiarly honest, peculiarly dependable, peculiarly industrious, peculiarly willing in our work, peculiarly kind, peculiarly hospitable, peculiarly understanding, and peculiarly, happy.”
April 1951 General Conference
- Governing the Church
  - “They are there; we have been taught them; the plan of operation is in the handbooks and elsewhere; the scriptures and the revelations are before us. And many of the decisions, I am sure, that we refer on up rather than take the responsibility of making them within the limits and scope of the offices we hold, we could readily avoid passing up, if we would prayerfully and earnestly follow the correct principles we have been taught and govern ourselves, each one according to his calling.”
October 1950 General Conference
- With Faith for the Future
  - “Now times have changed, but human nature hasn’t changed very much. We face other uncertainties today, and sympathy and appeals for faith and prayers and for encouragement to our young people who face the uncertainties of our generation have been expressed repeatedly in this conference. I should like to add my appeal for faith, for prayers, and for understanding for these young people who live in confusion and suspense, and who wonder when they are going to be relieved of all this uncertainty, when they can settle down, what they can count on for the future, whether to pursue their education and their preparations for professions or to give it all up.”
  - “Keep your lives well-balanced. Pursuing any narrow field of knowledge or activity to the exclusion of all others will reach a point of diminishing returns. Give some of your time to the things of the spirit, and always reserve some of your means to the purposes of your Father in heaven. Look broadly as well as intently, and keep your lives well-balanced in your pursuits.”
  - “I think the enemy of men’s souls wouldn’t care too much what means he used to render our lives ineffective, just so long as he did render them ineffective.”
April 1950 General Conference
- The Power and Privilege of Repentance
  - “I don’t know what the Lord’s eternal timetable is, but I am sure that he is happy to have it modified by the acts of men in the use of their free agency in bringing themselves to repentance.”
  - “One of the greatest calamities in this world would be the calamity of sitting down and waiting for calamities. We must not let the things we can’t do keep us from doing the things we can do.”
  - “There is nothing to lose by having faith in the future, but there is much to lose by not preparing for the future.”
October 1949 General Conference
- Delegation of Responsibility
  - “The fact that he is content to let us move so slowly must be significant, and it may be that some of the shortcuts that are sometimes suggested would not be good for us, individually or as a Church.”
  - “Men are most effective under conditions of voluntary cooperation, and that is one of the great pillars of strength of this Church. The free agency of man is basic. We are committed to it, and corollary with it is our own individual initiative and willing cooperation in a great cause.”
  - “I pray that we may each of us sense our responsibility in the world and in the Church, and that we who have responsibility for any part of the work may learn to delegate detail as occasion requires and trust these men, our brethren, and these women, our sisters, to do their part in pushing forward the things that need to be done, and to feel a sense of responsibility as concerns carrying forward this work.”
April 1949 General Conference
- Faith in the Future
  - “I hope we shall all be as patient and understanding with the imperfections of one another as our Father has been with us.”
  - “There is no more virtue in the mere possession of truth than there is in the mere possession of food. Neither will save a man unless he uses it, and uses it wisely.”
October 1948 General Conference
- Some Problems and Principles
  - “An idiotic opinion multiplied by fifty million is still an idiotic opinion.”
  - “No matter what everybody does, an error is still an error even though it is multiplied millions of times. So is an evil, and it doesn’t matter how popular or how glamorous or how universal evils become, they are still evils.”
  - “The opinion of one man who has the truth and proclaims it, is much more important than the opinions of many millions who don’t know.”
April 1948 General Conference
- Being United
  - “Too often the home that is divided becomes a home of irreligion; quite often it goes one way or the other, but in neither case is it often very satisfactory.”
October 1947 General Conference
- Building the People of the Church
  - “Even if it takes longer sometimes to convince a man that he ought to labor in an assignment than it would take to do the assignment yourselves, it will ultimately bear richer fruit if you persuade someone who is relatively inactive to render some service.”
April 1947 General Conference
- Raising Children
  - “I submit to you that the Lord does not deal in statistical impossibilities, and when he places upon any people the obligation of preaching the gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people it is an assignment tO’ be taken seriously and not something beyond possible reach.”
  - “When we are dealing with the life of a boy or girl, we are not dealing with an individual only. We are dealing with a whole posterity, and not with time only, but with life eternal.”
October 1946 General Conference
- Change and Progress
  - “I am afraid we have sometimes let ourselves be over-impressed by the appeal of the word “change,” without discriminating as between good changes and bad changes. We have sometimes let “change” come to be synonymous with “progress,” which it is not.”
  - “Times may have changed, but human nature has not. Times may have changed, but the commandments of God have not, and neither have the consequences of disregarding them.”
  - “Change may be progress or it may be disintegration. It isn’t a word to be accepted without question, and it is not synonymous with either of these other two terms.”
April 1946 General Conference
- Be Anxiously Engaged
  - “That is one of the great thrills of being a parent—when a child who has been taught correct principles proceeds to act in his own behalf in accordance with those principles, and to bring to pass good works and righteousness.”
  - “This generation, in many places in the world, has been deliberately conditioned for regimentation, and I am sure that those forces which are committed to the principle of the free agency of man and his intelligent action and responsibility in his own behalf must be more vigorous than ever before in counteracting this contrary influence.”
October 1945 General Conference
- Unity of Parents
  - “Our youth will grow up in confusion if parents are in any wise divided in what they stand for and in what they present to their children in their impressionable years.”
  - “While there must be a sympathetic understanding of the point of view of our young people, we must not be inclined to give in to them on things which we know to be improper or unwise—not even if they confront us with the age-old argument that all the other mothers and fathers are letting their children do it.”
April 1945 General Conference
- Good People and Good Government
  - “We have a leadership in this Church, who have an obligation, as President Grant stated yesterday morning, to instruct this people to do anything which the Lord inspires them to do, and I am sure that we must understand the authorities in their fulfilling of this obligation.”
October 1944 General Conference
- The Mysteries
  - “A word of restraining counsel to our quorums, and to us as individuals, whenever we are tempted to become heated in speculation about things which we do not and cannot know, except by revelation: “Study the word of God, and preach it, and not your opinions.””
April 1944 General Conference
- Effects of War
  - “War does not change our obligations to be bearers of the message of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, wherever we are and under whatever circumstances we find ourselves.”
  - “War does not change our obligations and responsibilities concerning our children; it cannot and it must not.”
  - “War does not change is moral law, nor the evils and consequences that follow the disregarding of moral law. There is only one set of rules pertaining to the personal conduct of the children of our Father in heaven.”
October 1943 General Conference
- Going to Law
  - “If people could live without going to law, society would be greatly benefitted, and individual pockets suffer less.”
April 1943 General Conference
- War Does Not Change Fundamentals
  - “The pattern of our preaching may change; the composition of the manpower that preaches the word may change; our methods may of necessity change a good deal; our work may be done largely at home in the stakes instead of abroad in foreign fields, but still the obligation is upon us.”
  - “War must not lower any of our standards of personal conduct. A uniform does not give a young man any special privilege, so far as a young woman is concerned.”
October 1942 General Conference
- Following the Direction of the Church
  - “Since the restoration there has never been a time in the history of this people when the leadership of this Church has not given direction concerning those things which vitally affect the temporal and spiritual welfare of this Church and this people; and the present and the immediate past are no exceptions to this general statement. Those who have not seen the way in which that direction has pointed have not seen it, either because they have been too indifferent, or because they have chosen not to see it.”
April 1942 General Conference
- Religion and Politics
  - “The principles of religion enter into every activity of life. Should the activities of politics extend themselves into every activity of life, we must be increasingly careful to weigh every issue of politics according to principle, and not according to politics.”
October 1941 General Conference
- The Ten Commandments
  - “I am sure that the Lord knew what He was doing, that He is enough of a teacher, to state first things first, and I repeat, that the presumption of rearranging the order of the Ten Commandments according to their supposed current social importance is exceeded only by the significance of the order of this rearrangement. The fact is if we were to keep the First Commandment—and love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and have no other Gods before Him—all the others would follow in due course without any difficulty whatever.”
  - “Shouting is sometimes thought to be a substitute for truth, that there are those, the type of which you know as well as I, who believe if they shout a thing long enough and loud enough some of it will be believed regardless of its inherent truth or falsity.”
April 1941 General Conference
- Preparing for War
  - “I would like our young men to remember that wherever they are, God is in that place and they must take Him into their confidence and conduct themselves in His ways.”
  - “We cannot departmentalize the eternal record of our lives. It is one continued story. As Latter-day Saints we don’t behave one way in the army and one way in business and another in Church. That is, not if we give heed to our principles. We do not behave one way at home and another way away from home. Wherever we are, remember that God is in this place also, and when the final record is written and read, all that we have done and thought, at home and abroad, in all the occupations and in all the pursuits that we may be called upon to undertake, is all a part of the eternal record of all of us, and it stands unalterably for us or against us.”
  - “If we make the best of all our circumstances of our own generation and time the Lord will ask no more of us.”
October 1940 General Conference
- Leadership
  - “Our responsibility in this Church is the responsibility of leadership, and that we must take it, whatever it may cost us, because the Lord has told us that we have been sent to be a light unto the world and to be saviors of men; and if we don’t give this leadership, others will assume it, to the sorrow of mankind and to our own condemnation.”
  - “I feel sure that we need to pray over a good many other things, including our scholarship, our academic activities, our political activities, our social activities. I am sure that we need to pray over every phase of thought and of life.”
  - “It is very difficult to know, and I think man unaided, of himself, and without some Higher Help, cannot know what to believe and what not to believe of the maze of material that daily passes before our eyes and comes within the range of our hearing.”
April 1940 General Conference
- A Testimony
  - “I think it was just about a year ago at this hour that a similar situation had arisen, and Dr. Widtsoe was called upon to speak. He advised us that he had a prepared talk in his pocket, but there was no time to deliver it and he would probably deliver it at the next Conference. I think he did not deliver it at the next Conference, however, and my curiosity, fully equal to that of a woman on this particular subject, got the better of me, andl have asked him several times since what that talk was about. He has merely smiled, and I do not know yet.”
  - “I think my retaliation at this time will be of like character. I have a talk in my pocket. It was to have been a very good one. (Laughter.) It is still a very good one, but it is not for the ears of this congregation. I am not above borrowing time from my brethren here on the stand, but there is no one left to borrow it from except the congregation, and I refuse to do that.”
  - “I do not know what a full tithing means to you, but I know what it means to me by the teachings of my great and good mother whose presence I so sorely miss at this time. It has meant to me all the days of my life a tenth of every dollar that ever passed through my hands, whether by gift or as a reward for labor. I am grateful for that example and that teaching.”
  - “I have thought at times that I would like to put the Lord in my debt, but have found that it is impossible to do so, and I commend to all of you who have not experienced the surpassing joy of attempting to do so that you. do it. No one with whom you have any business in this world or out of it will repay you so surely or so generously. That is my testimony ; it has proved to be so in my own life, and I know it will in the life of every Latter-day Saint who will take this principle of the Gospel and live it and reap from it all the material and spiritual rewards that come therefrom.”
October 1939 General Conference
- Faith a Sure Foundation for Knowledge
  - “It has been one of my obligations to conduct the tourist service in this auditorium, following the nation-wide broadcast of the Tabernacle Choir each Sunday morning, and also the Sunday afternoon Tabernacle services on numerous occasions, and as the faces of the thousands of searching men and women have passed before us here I have been led to have a deep sympathy for those men who by reason of their profession or the expediency of making a livelihood, must stand before their fellow men to preach, teach, persuade, or convince in any field of learning or any department of life except they know within their souls that that which they speak is the truth. Except they have that connection they are blind leaders of the blind, and the blind don’t lead the blind very well.”
  - “The things we do by faith gloriously transcend those things we do by mere knowledge. Moving mountains is a trivial thing to those who have it. By faith and its attendant works the world was created, and worlds may yet be created.”
  - “I have learned to know that all men of academic training are not alike, and I have learned to know that there are many men possessed of great funds of factual knowledge who lack wisdom.”
  - “I have learned to know that when you find a man of learning who has faith, you may travel with him into new worlds of thought, and beyond horizons as yet not traversed by humankind, with joy and with safety. But when you find a man of learning without faith, you may not travel with him in safety to any destination.”
  - “I am aware that under the sea, in the air, and on the land, man is master—master of almost everything but himself.”
April 1939 General Conference
- Raising a Young Family
  - “I find myself at times, because of this condition and because of the realization of it, with a certain envy in my heart for my grandparents—envy because of the moral and spiritual environment in which they were permitted to rear their children. They could go to sleep at night, in this community and in most of those communities from which we have gathered here, in the days of our more or less isolated condition, aware of the fact that the family home and fireside were the principal formative elements in the lives of their children ; and if, perchance, their little brood was out at some place of entertainment, they could be assured that these places were being run by men whom they had put in office, or in whom they had confidence, and that they were as the extended influence of the home, and were protected from moral tarnish or physical harm. And if, perchance, there were a wolf at the door, at least it was the wolf of honest hunger, and not a wolf of warped thinking or subtle influence.”
  - “I realize that the catalogue of the material advantages that we enjoy, that our grandparents did not enjoy, would number tens of thousands of items and services, and a listing of them would make a very thick publication, indeed ; but I realize, also that we have paid a price for each of them.”
  - “When I speak of envying my grandparents I realize that I would not go back to their day if I could, and that I could not if I would. They solved the problems of their day, and we must solve the problems of ours.”
  - “It is possible, perchance, that we, or a part of us, could again find a place of isolation that would sustain and prosper an independent and an industrious people, but by doing so we would not be solving our problems. We would only be postponing them, because the world is very small in this day, and civilization moves in very quickly.”
  - “I know that my family and I will be better off to be found among the faithful of this people, than in any other condition in which we might find ourselves.”
October 1938 General Conference
- I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go
  - “It is a conclusive thing for a man to stand convicted by his own words.”
  - “Since that time it has been my privilege to become acquainted with all of the General Authorities of the Church, and their lives have been a testimony to me, because I know that they would not be doing the things they are doing, and would not have left the things they have left, to do the things they are now doing, except that they know of a surety that this is the work of the Lord, and must go forward.”
  - “A truth does not need to be shouted to be appreciated—a truth quietly spoken has much greater effect than an untruth shouted from the housetops.”
  - “I spent a good part of the day yesterday trying to find sympathy from some of these my brethren, the General Authorities, who are sitting around me here. I found none, so I decided to like what has befallen me. President Clark told me yesterday morning that they had all been through it, and I might just as well cheer up.”
  - “It was only necessary for me to think quietly for a few moments to see that there is no turning back for a Latter-day Saint, and he who thinks there is, finds himself not turning back but turning away.”

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Richard L. Evans

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