John A. Widtsoe – Gospel Study

John A. Widtsoe

Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (March 17, 1921 – November 29, 1952)

General Conference Addresses

April 1952 General Conference
- Symbolism in Irrigation
  - “It is good to be a Latter-day Saint. It is good to be here. It is good to hear the words of inspiration that come from the mouths and lives of these inspired men. I am glad to feel the responsive spirit from the thousands of people who are here and who listen over the radio.”
April 1951 General Conference
- Let Us Search Our Testimonies
  - “Love is not a mere word or a sensation within. To be a worthy love, it must be brought into action.”
  - “We can’t help it, my brethren and sisters, if we are different. We are different—in righteousness, in virtue, in the teachings of the eternal gospel—we are different. We can’t escape it. If our testimonies are sound and true, we know that we cannot be like other people unless they, too, accept the truth as we possess it.”
October 1950 General Conference
- Anniversaries i Scandinavia
  - “It is also a hundred years ago since the gospel was brought to the foreign-speaking lands of Europe. Up to that time we had only once attempted to preach the gospel in foreign tongues, namely in the South Sea Islands.:
- Be of Good Courage
  - “Evil offered itself to the first man; it will pound, however uselessly, on the ears of the last. Evil forces, in whatever disguise, must be fought, desperately if needs be, and brought to their knees; else life’s sweetness will disappear.”
  - “Forgotten also is the ancient truth that fear is the devil’s first and chief weapon. Make a man or a nation afraid, and his strength like that of Samson shorn of his locks, is gone. He is no longer useful in the work of the world. He becomes a tool of the unholy forces which seek to destroy mankind.”
  - “Usually evil philosophies use evil material tools. The great danger in these philosophies is, however, that they simulate truth. They are deceiving; and by their deceit often secure as adherents otherwise honest people. We should for our protection uncover these masked devils.”
April 1950 General Conference
- Universal Brotherhood
  - “God has told us that we should secure to the best of our ability all knowledge. The well of truth will never be drained dry. The problem is not how much knowledge we possess, but how wise we are in using it properly for our own good in accordance with God’s commands. Use and misuse lie at the foundation of every good thing that comes to humanity. Therein lies the right of the free agent.”
  - “It is the duty of Latter-day Saints to learn little by little to be conquerors of themselves. Self-conquest is the great desire of all Latter-day Saints who understand the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
  - “There is no aristocracy in heaven except as we obey or disobey the commandments of God.”
October 1949 General Conference
- Preserve Our Heritage
  - “Our fathers set up also the doctrine of industry. There is no place for idleness. The idler, the deliberate idler, has no real place in the kingdom of God.”
April 1949 General Conference
- Teach the Truth
  - “We have truth. We are not concerned much with interpretation of truth. The sorrows of the world may be traced back, now or in the past to false interpretations of eternal truth. I hope you will also think about the applications of knowledge to daily life, but that is another subject.”
October 1948 General Conference
- Hunger in the Midst of Plenty
  - “We live in a land of plenty in material things. We revel in luxury. Meanwhile, the blood of our children is shed over the earth, for heaven only knows what. We live in a land of spiritual famine. We are hungry for the bread that feeds the spirit. Because of our waywardness, contention, warfare, and other evils rob us of the happiness the Lord would have us enjoy.”
  - “Repentance and forgiveness are eternal principles. But there is work to do. Each one of us must change his own life. Each one of us must be a converter of others.”
April 1948 General Conference
- Truth
  - “We who receive truth have light to point the way, to solve our problems, to tell us where we are going, and to give us an enlightening faith to help us in the journey of life.”
October 1947 General Conference
- The Responsibility of Women
  - “Life is more than three meals a day. One must move into the spiritual realm which lies all about us to win full enjoyment in life.”
  - “There are people who are fond of saying that women are the weaker sex. I don’t believe it. Physically they may be, but spiritually, morally, religiously, and in faith what man can match a woman who is really convinced!”
  - “A man marries a girl and expects her to be a perfect woman; she expects him to be a perfect man; both are imperfect. Their business in life is to help each other to move more nearly towards a state of perfection.”
April 1947 General Conference
- Faith in Israel
  - “Truth is not an ornament to be hung on the wall or placed on the shelf to look at. It must be of daily use.”
October 1946 General Conference
- Responsibility of Latter-day Saints in Building for Peace
  - “It is a curious commentary on human nature that men who cry for peace look upon peace as something that may be picked as an apple from a tree, something that lies about within easy reach of humanity. If I pick an apple from a tree, I have first planted the tree, cared for it, watered it, brought it to maturity. Then in due time I may have the fruit. So with peace. It is not a thing by itself to be picked up casually; but it is the fruit of something precedent. Like the tree, something must be planted and nourished and cared for, if we are to obtain peace.”
  - “My own salvation comes first; but unless I give of my strength to the winning of other souls for God, my own salvation will be incomplete.”
April 1946 General Conference
- The Way to Peace
  - “There has been no diminution of power and leadership in this Church since the days of the Prophet Joseph. The same authority is possessed today as then; and the men who possess that authority in our day are as capable as those of the past in carrying forward the work of the Lord.”
  - “History is a dead thing unless used as lessons for us of a later day.”
- Faith under the Atomic Bomb
  - “We are really afraid of ourselves. We have lost faith in humanity and look with suspicion upon every human act. We forget that man was made in the image of God—not merely in bodily form, but in his very nature. The sparks of divinity lie within every human soul, waiting to be kindled into flame.”
  - “We have also been inclined to forget God or to give him lip service. Too many of us accept him as a mysterious force or figure, distant from us, who demands appeasement one day a week, in competition with our golf and baseball. We do not believe him to be concerned with our daily needs or the constant issues of our lives. If that be faith, it is spindly, bloodless, useless.”
  - “One cannot love God without loving the children of God, and trusting them. Let a home make it a practice to speak well of others, and to seek out their virtues.”
October 1945 General Conference
- The Principle of Revelation
  - “If we violate our covenant and fail to recognize the leadership of him who is called to be the President of the Church and God’s prophet, the gates of hell may prevail against us. Too often, I am sorry to say, they have done so.”
  - “If we, men and women, could wrap ourselves in obedience to God’s law, live as we should live, a wonderful change is effected in us, and we, too, can then hear the messages of the unseen world.”
  - “The test of truth, given us is very simple, easily understood. When an impression comes, call it inspiration or revelation, compare it with the words that issue from the mouth of the prophet who stands at the head of the Church. Then, if your impression is in harmony with his expressed words, it is from God. If it runs counter to the prophet’s teachings, your impression is from an evil source.”
  - “The Lord wants to speak to us; he wants to guide us. He wants us to hear. His Holy Spirit permeates the universe, touches every heart, and if it is permitted, will carry messages to us from the throne of God. The manner of our lives will help us to receive such messages and to distinguish between those that may come from God and those that come from the evil one.”
April 1945 General Conference
- Full Service
  - “We believe, and we have so taught, that every question confronting humanity may be answered by the gospel if we understand the gospel and accept it and use it properly; and every problem before us may be solved in the same manner.”
  - “If our claim is true, as I verily believe it is, that we alone have the true and full gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, we carry a tremendous responsibility upon our shoulders. There will then be no world peace until we do our part, accept our high commission and teach the truth to all the world.”
  - “We cannot sit in some cozy, warm, spiritual chimney corner, thanking God for the blessings of the gospel, for our membership in the Church, selfishly forgetting all else and everybody else. That is not our work, nor our destiny, nor our business in life, under God’s command.”
  - “Faith and truth are invincible. With the sling of faith and the pebble of truth, like David of old, we may lay low every giant of unbelief and error and opposition to truth in all the world.”
October 1944 General Conference
- The Returning Soldier
  - “We have the reputation of being a productive and creative people; and indeed we deserve it. We have always tried to better the world, to leave it richer than we found it, spiritually and temporally.”
  - “Ignorance waits on no man. Dominion of the earth will ultimately be in the hands of those who know, and use their powers intelligently.”
  - “The day of the pioneer is not over. Progress is never ending, on the farm as elsewhere. Problems beckon to every man of courage; and there is joy in conquest.”
April 1944 General Conference
- Courage for Crisis
  - “If we desire prosperity, we of this land must conform to the principles that lie imbedded in the Constitution of the United States. For, he said, through such conformity we shall win liberty of conscience, and protection for the weak and for the oppressed. Without the preservation of this right and protection, there is no true freedom.”
  - “We engage in the election, the same as any other principle; you are to vote for good men, and if you do not do this, it is a sin: to vote for wicked men would be a sin.”
  - “Men of false principles have preyed upon us like wolves upon helpless lambs. Damn the rod of tyranny; curse it. Let every man use his liberties according to the Constitution”
October 1943 General Conference
- The Nature of Peace
  - “The formula is simple: Live the gospel every day, practice it, and study it regularly; do not let the affairs of the day that deal with the making of our temporal living crowd aside matters that pertain to the gospel. If we use this formula, our testimony will become increasingly certain, will grow, will expand in meaning and comprehension.”
  - “This is a Church of peace. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is a gospel of peace. The head of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ, was spoken of in Brother McKay’s address, as the Prince of Peace. If we study the conditions of the Church, its principles, its practices, all that pertains to it, we shall find that they all converge upon one great objective—the establishment of peace upon earth and among the children of men. That is the objective which dates back to the beginning of mortal time.”
  - “Peace upon earth is not to be established by Congress or Parliament, or by a group of international representatives. Peace is not a thing that can be taken on, then taken off again, as we do a piece of clothing. Peace is quite different from that. Peace cannot be legislated into existence. It is not the way to lasting peace upon earth.”
  - “Peace comes from within; peace is myself, if I am a truly peaceful man. The very essence of me must be the spirit of peace. Individuals make up the community, and the nation—an old enough doctrine, which we often overlook—and the only way to build a peaceful community is to build men and women who are lovers and makers of peace.”
  - “Peace has been lost because the world has lost the knowledge of divine truth, or knowing it, has misunderstood it.”
  - “We are Zion; we say we are; I know we are. We are under the tremendous commission so to live, so to establish peace in our own hearts as to make our companionship, wherever we are, a society to which the suffering, the uneasy, those without peace, in all the world, may flee for safety. Truly a tremendous obligation rests upon the Latter-day Saints.”
April 1943 General Conference
- The Way of Salvation
  - “Temple work is, primarily I was about to say, for those engaged in the active affairs of life, for those who are in the midst of life’s battle, the young and the middle-aged. Perhaps they need it most. Certainly, it is quite as much for these as for those who seek refuge in their old age in the blessings of the temple.”
  - “If we Latter-day Saints have any great ideal, it is that of our Elder Brother. All that we strive for, and all that we have fought for, and all that we pray for, is to become more and more like Him as our days and years increase.”
October 1942 General Conference
- Leadership
  - “No man can be a safe leader who does not love truth above all else.”
  - “There is never a possible compromise with untruth. Truth must ever be obeyed, or leadership leads downward. What a different world we should have today if the leaders of nations had made truth their first love and had surrendered to it.”
  - “Every man to be true to his calling in this Church must possess the spirit of devotion and sacrifice, of diligence and dependability, of love of man and God, which enabled the Prophet to seal his testimony with his blood.”
April 1942 General Conference
- If Ye Are Prepared Ye Shall Not Fear
  - “We must seek to dispel fear from among our people. A timid, fearing people cannot do their work well.”
  - “The Lord has repeatedly warned His people against fear. Many a blessing is withheld because of our fears. He has expressly declared that men cannot stop his work on earth, therefore, they who are engaged in the Lord’s latter-day cause and who fear, really trust man more than God, and thereby are robbed of their power to serve.”
October 1941 General Conference
- Personal Responsibility
  - “Membership in this Church involves personal responsibility. The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ presents the doctrine of individual salvation. There is no mass salvation in the Kingdom of God. One by one we enter into the glory of the Lord.”
  - “No person can accept full responsibility, personal responsibility, as he should, for the welfare of this work, unless he learns the great secret art of self-forgetfulness. We must learn to forget ourselves in a great cause, to submerge ourselves in that great cause, to surrender to that great cause.”
  - “This is the simplest of all formulas to win the Lord’s favor handed down from ancient days—to reach out to the Lord, to trust Him, to keep His commandments. If we do this, all that we need shall be given us, and all shall be well with us, as individuals and as builders of the Lord’s latter-day kingdom.”
April 1941 General Conference
- Tolerance
  - “Men may believe and act as seems to them good so long as they do not infringe upon our rights or transgress the law. They may cherish false beliefs, yet we mingle with them in friendliness. Thereby the association of mankind is made tolerable.”
  - “We know that tolerance is of God; intolerance of the devil. We are and must remain a tolerant people.”
  - “The true meaning of tolerance is often misunderstood. Tolerance has its distinct limits. To allow our neighbors the privilege to believe and live as they choose, under the law, does not mean that to keep peace we must live as they do.”
  - “Spiritual and moral disintegration begins when we sacrifice truth to conform with the way of the crowd. The creeping evil that then sets in begets indifference and often ends in apostasy. It leads to certain unhappiness.”
  - “We are, or we are not, on the side of the Lord. An unrelenting faith, contemptuous of all compromise, will lead the Church and every member of it, to triumph and the achievement of our high destiny.”
  - “Goliath’s man-made sword was no match for David’s faith-directed pebble.”
  - “That is the problem of every Latter-day Saint, especially as we spread over the earth, and as mankind calls for help: To be in the world, but not of the world! To be ever a unique people, a peculiar people, in the observance of righteousness. They who fail to do so, will suffer cankered souls, will question the value of life, and eventually will face spiritual death.”
  - “Today, as perhaps never before, the battle-cry of modern Israel, the people of the Lord, must be, with respect to the truths of the Gospel: “No Compromise.””
October 1940 General Conference
- Education
  - “There is no place for ignorance in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Light and truth, ever increasing, the only safe protection against evil, must ever guide this people and all the world, if humanity shall find peace and happiness.”
  - “The intelligent man gathers knowledge and proceeds to use it in harmony with the divine plan of salvation—for the blessing of the children of men.”
  - “We have given our public schools a great trust; and have endowed them with tremendous power. Our children are in their keeping during most of the formative years of life. As the schools teach so will the coming generation think and act.”
April 1940 General Conference
- Overcoming Selfishness
  - “We cannot walk as other men, or talk as other men, or do as other men, for we have a different destiny, obligation, and responsibility placed upon us, and we must fit ourselves for that great destiny and obligation.”
  - “At no time has God given His children a commandment which does not have a spiritual significance. Often I fear we fail in our obedience, because we look upon God’s commandments with temporal eyes, and fail to understand their spiritual meaning.”
October 1939 General Conference
- Has Christianity Failed?
  - “Christianity has not failed. Human history, from the days of Adam, reveals that, if but one Gospel principle is used, under any name, mankind is blessed and prospered. Man’s peace and prosperity have risen or fallen with the degree of his obedience to Gospel truths.”
  - “As an ornament, Christianity has no special claim for consideration; it blossoms into human value only when used. Man has failed to accept the life-giving truths of the Gospel. That has been his failure.”
  - “In the moral world the ever constant battle is between good and evil. Man is a free agent. Whenever he has chosen good, he has approached joy; when he has followed evil, the ills of the world have overtaken him. The present chaos on earth, of warfare and its attendant horrors, are of man’s own making. He has chosen to allow evil to rule him; and he must pay the price of his folly.”
  - “There is a sure, unfailing mark of the true followers of Jesus, the Christ. This mark is the power to forget oneself in the needs of others—we call it unselfishness, the highest achievement of man.”
April 1939 General Conference
- Develop a Habit of Good Reading
  - “Faith is a living thing, subject to all the laws of life. It may be begotten; it may grow; it may weaken; it may die. Therefore it must be cherished, fostered and fed.”
  - “Faith must be intelligent. Ignorance breeds superstition, the opposite of faith.”
  - “The man who does not add knowledge to knowledge, throughout his life, may endanger his very faith. Latter-day Saints should be readers; they should cultivate the reading habit.”
  - “There is on our American market a mass of worthless literature, books and magazines, often sexy, unsound and demoralizing. The land is flooded with them; they are available in every village. They are poisonous offerings which too often make up the reading of young and old. It is a type of intellectual and spiritual suicide. The effects of such reading are much like those of habit-forming drugs, creating unnatural, unhealthy desires, and weakening both body and mind. Such time as we do give to reading should be devoted to carefully selected literature, high grade magazines and books, which cost no more, but build up the mind, and feed the spirit of man.”
October 1938 General Conference
- A Testimony
  - “I do bear testimony to you of the truth of this work, which has brought us together during this great, wonderful, thrilling conference. This work is of God, not of man. It was founded in revelation. It has been guided by revelation. It is being directed today by revelation. It possesses the authority of eternity—we call it the Priesthood—the power by which the heavens and the earth were made.”
  - “Life is made up of little things, our daily duties. We are too prone to say that that which is clear and understandable is of little consequence; while that which is complex and difficult to understand we sometimes hold to be great. Let us remember that the little things of life, the simple things, are the ones that lead us into the greater truths.”
April 1938 General Conference
- Intelligence and Wisdom
  - “The answer to the question is simple, well understood by all. These brethren did not use their knowledge in conformity with the order of the Church as set forth in the revelations of the Lord. That is, they entered forbidden paths; they did not obey the commandments of God. The practices of their lives did not correspond with their knowledge.”
  - “Knowledge may become the pathway to evil when not applied as directed by the Gospel plan.”
  - “The gaining of knowledge is but a first necessary step in a progressive life. Knowledge must be quickened and made alive by proper use.”
  - “In the language of mathematics we may say that knowledge, plus the proper use of knowledge, equals intelligence, or wisdom.”
  - “It often happens that a person of limited knowledge but who earnestly and prayerfully obeys the law, rises to a higher intelligence or wisdom, than one of vast Gospel learning who does not comply in his daily life with the requirements of the Gospel. Obedience to law is a mark of intelligence.”
October 1937 General Conference
- Agriculture
  - “Disease of body and mind as of spirit travels in the wake of hunger. A nation in which all citizens are well-fed is a nation of prosperous peace, of courage to undertake the conquest of natural forces for the good of man. Fear departs from the man whose food for himself and his family is assured. He faces the world and its problems fearlessly, courageously, trustingly. He may use his powers to the full.”
  - “Our life pursuit must be only in part a business; it must be more a mode of living, else we cannot win happiness. Life is bigger than the parts of which it is made.”
April 1937 General Conference
- Change
  - “I find that we no longer speak of an advancing day. We speak now of a changing day. This has greatly disturbed me because change Is not necessarily advancement. I must know in what direction change takes place. If I live in an advancing day, then I know the change is one that I may favor and to which I may cling. But unless I am certain of the direction of change, I hesitate to accept it.”
  - “We are touched and changed by that which we do, for good or evil. The dishonest man corrupts his body; the honest man makes it grow into greater strength and power.”
October 1936 General Conference
- Progress in the Gospel
  - “Faith has been most effective when accompanied by an understanding of man’s relationship to Deity. The way out of the world’s tragic chaos—the terror of poverty, sickness and war—must be illuminated by a comprehension of man’s nature and destiny.”
  - “True, man “lives and moves and has his being” under the law of progression; but progress is ever an inward, not an outward process. His increasing progress is not imposed upon him; salvation is a cooperative enterprise between God and man.”
  - “A righteous nation is but the assemblage of righteous men. National prosperity is but the sum of personal prosperity. When each man sets his own house in order, the whole world will be in order.”
  - “We prattle about the brotherhood of man, but true fraternity can be realized only upon the acceptance of all men as our very brothers, possessing equal rights with us.”
April 1936 General Conference
- Character in Education
  - “Character—we all admit the importance of it—is practically forgotten in the curriculum of the schools of the United States. Thinkers talk about it, there is much said about it on the public platform, but little is done about it.”
April 1935 General Conference
- The Constitution of the Church
  - “This revelation, now known as Section 107, together with two or three other revelations, forms, as it were, the constitution of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, upon which we are building today, and upon which we will build until the Lord comes.”
  - “I do my duty, little by little, day by day, year by year, and then the Lord takes the. deeds of my life, and as we use bricks in the building of a house, he builds for me eternal life. We may have forgotten that, at times, in our eagerness to accomplish.”
October 1934 General Conference
- Fundamental Truth
  - “I can cling safely to the Church, to the Gospel of Jesus Christ; it has steadying power, it does not change nor vary. It is the same today, yesterday and forever.”
  - “There will be no peace on earth, no final solution of man’s vexing problems, until leaders and followers humble themselves to receive guidance from the heavens.”
  - “When apostasy comes, it is because the spirit of revelation departs from us. The wire is broken between us and the source of truth. We cannot understand, though truth be spoken, since we are not possessed of the spirit of truth. We misunderstand and misinterpret.”
  - “If we practice in our lives the truths given us, then as certainly as we do that, the enlivening spirit of light, of revelation, of understanding will come to us, comprehension will enter our minds and hearts and we shall know the true joy of being Latter-day Saints.”
April 1934 General Conference
- The Mission in Europe
  - “When the world approaches upon its knees the Author of Truth with full love of truth in its heart, then shall humanity be able to build toward the perfection of which humanity dreams. There is no other way.”
April 1931 General Conference
- Teachers of the World
  - “I believe that the spiritual resentment in the world today has resulted from the idolatry which still lingers upon the earth, the attempt to force men to worship a God that is man-made, an incomprehensible God, an essence, one who is so far from us in understanding that men cannot bow down before him as they should, and pray to him as a child should pray to his father.”
  - “We are not to be taught by the world. We are the teachers of the world.”
April 1927 General Conference
- Unity of the Saints
  - “If a man eat good wholesome food regularly, his body is kept in good condition and he feels well; physical happiness is his. If he has access to truth, accepts it and practices it regularly, he becomes spiritually contented.”
  - “We must, as a body of worshipers, receivers of the Latter-day truth, accept and practice as best we can all the principles of the gospel. I observe a tendency to make a selection of the principles of the gospel, and to say: “This one I like and shall practice; that one I am not so thoroughly converted to, and I shall not practice it.” The object of the gospel, human happiness, may be won only if one practices completely the set of laws and principles which we call the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
  - “Let me draw a comparison from the physical world. The white light that comes from the sun is made up of many colors, varying from violet, through all the colors, to deep red. If we take all these colors and mix them carefully, pure white light appears, but if one color is missing, the resulting light is impure. Even so with the great spiritual spectrum; only when all the principles of the gospel are practiced with all our might, are we able to win for ourselves the spiritual contentment and happiness which should characterize the private and public lives of Latter-day Saints.”
October 1926 General Conference
- All Truth Accepted
  - “If it be the truth, we accept it, and know that there is a place for it in the great plan of truth, known as the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
  - “Latter-day Saints are careful to examine the validity of the truths set before them. We make the satisfying claim that the truth of greatest validity, that of greatest certainty, is the truth that has come from the mouth of God by revelation to his children in this and in every age through the history of the world.”
April 1926 General Conference
- The Word of Wisdom
  - “We believe that in a strong, healthy body the spirit may do more effectively and efficiently the work which it is called upon to do here upon earth. It is a duty of Latter-day Saints to live well.”
  - “The mind must be used and the body must be used, neither to excess nor to the exclusion of the other ; otherwise, we shall not attain to that fulness of perfection of life on earth which we believe is the right of all Latter-day Saints.”
October 1925 General Conference
- Gospel Ideals
  - “We live by our ideals, we die by our ideals. Nations grow large, or they dwindle, according to their ideals.”
April 1925 General Conference
- Obedience
  - “How much of the law should a man obey? All of the law! Not one law should be forgotten.”
October 1924 General Conference
- We Rest Upon the Gospel
  - “A knowledge of God, and faith in his word have ever been the determining force in the making of the character of a man or a nation.”
  - “It is dangerous to limit in our thinking the powers of God, to allow ourselves to say that God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth, the Founder of truth, is limited simply because we are limited in our understanding. It leads men to unbelief and atheism.”
October 1923 General Conference
- Truth Needs No Bolstering
  - “If we deal with high truth, a great truth, such a truth carries within itself evidence of its correctness.”
  - “One does not need to search the world for evidence of the truth of this work. The evidence lies within the work itself.”
  - “Truth always comes in light, it can not come in darkness; It does not come hooded and covered and formless; it does not come as do initiations into the secret societies of the world; but it comes in open daylight, or in a light above that of daylight; which makes it clear and understandable to the human mind.”
April 1923 General Conference
- Great Practices and Principles
  - “There are in this Church great fundamental principles, and reflected from those principles are great fundamental practices. The possession of these principles, the use of these practices, lie at the foundation of any explanation of the vitality and the strength and the fitness of “Mormonism” to serve the human race; and that is my testimony to you. as I understand this great gospel of Jesus Christ.”
  - “It is easy, if one will but humble himself and keep near to God in prayer and in service, to understand these great fundamental world-shaping principles of’ the gospel of Jesus Christ, and almost as easy to practice them.”
October 1922 General Conference
- Education
  - “Education frequently helps the criminal in his lawless deeds. Spiritual education is the best known means of causing men to use their powers for human good.”
  - “To be merely mentally trained is to be only partly trained. The man whose mind only has been trained may be likened to the ship with great engines and a huge propeller, ready to drive the ship forward, but without rudder, chart, compass, or definite destination.”
April 1922 General Conference
- Spiritual Coinage
  - “If I obey the commandments of God and live in accordance with my best knowledge of His law, when great things are required of me, I may, with confidence, draw upon the power of God. to secure the assistance I need.”
  - “Facts are merely the building blocks of truth; they have no value in themselves; but when facts are placed in conjunction with each other, in an organized form in the service of great explanations, they leap into life and attain meaning.”
  - “A nation with a purposeless philosophy of man’s existence has never served the world greatly.”
  - “A piece of silver always has a certain value as it passes from hand to hand; it is weighed and we sell it in the market place; but, when that piece of silver is coined into a dollar, it receives the stamp of government service; it becomes a coin of the realm, and it moves from hand to hand to accomplish the work of the realm. So, every act of man, the moment it is fitted into the great plan, the plan of salvation, receives spiritual coinage, and passes from hand to hand, from mind to mind, to accomplish the great work of God.”
  - “Those who do not so place their lives, who act because of selfish purposes, independently of the great plan, are as the purblind; they stand in the midst of knowledge and light, yet they do not see. In times of material difficulty, like these, it is more important than ever to hold to the spiritual significance of life and to obey the spiritual law.”
October 1921 General Conference
- Knowledge of God
  - “I am impressed to say, that although we have so wonderful a body of knowledge, the most known to any people on the face of the earth, yet knowledge of itself is a lifeless and unsatisfactory thing. Every once in a while, as we journey through life, we. meet some man who is rich in knowledge, but uses his knowledge only as an ornament on his intellectual mantel-shelf simply to be looked at, to be enjoyed as an ornament and nothing more. There is no truth more certain in all the world, than that in order to make knowledge—the things that have been taught us, of value, and really beautiful, and helpful in making our lives real living lives, knowledge must be put to some use. Knowledge unused is scarcely worth the having; but knowledge once used leaps into light and life and becomes a bright flame to guide and to help man.”
  - “All humanity today may be classified, I suppose, into two great classes as far as knowledge is concerned—those who have knowledge and use it not, and those who have, perhaps, lesser knowledge arud use it well. Those who use the knowledge are the ones who today are leading the world in every proper human activity.”
  - “To my mind the greatest manner of using knowledge, the eternal divine knowledge which we have and which we call frequently the gospel of Jesus Christ, is to use it in such a way as to benefit the whole human race. Many men use knowledge for their own sakes. That makes it of less value. Indeed I suspect that one real difference between religion and ethics is in the manner in which truth is used. When truth is used for all men, for the carrying out of some great scheme of salvation, such as God has provided, then knowledge has its noblest use and worth. When it is used only for a few, for me and my family and those near me, the religious element tends to disappear.”
  - “The great need of the world today is a correct understanding of God.”
  - “The only path to peace and happiness is through the proper knowledge of God, including his plan of salvation ; and therein, and therein only, will the nations of the world find what they are seeking today. It is our duty to teach the word of God to the world.”
- The Meaning of the Latter-day Work
  - “I know that in the light of the gospel, man may walk in happiness and in enjoyment throughout this life’s journey, and ultimately, when we shall pass through the great veil, we may enjoy exaltation and eternal life throughout the endless ages. This testimony fills my heart with joy.”
  - “The doctrines taught by the despised Latter-day Saints been appropriated by the nations of the earth; and whether the people of the earth accept the inspiration of Joseph Smith, nevertheless, in fact, the whole current of human thought has been changed by the doctrines of this people.”
  - “The story is told that Brigham Young was met by the trapper Jim Bridger, who came to the Great Basin about 1824 and lived here for a quarter of a century; and that he said to Brigham Young, “I have spent a quarter of a century in the Great Basin, and I can’t see any possibility of building a state on these barren wastes. I doubt if grain can be raised in; the Salt Lake valley.” But Brigham Young, taught by Almighty God, said, “You who have spent your life in these valleys may come to me with these conclusions; but I know that within this great American desert we may yet build homes and enjoy pro; perity and happiness, and fulfil the destiny that God has promised his people.” That is the difference between the inspiration of God and the judgment of men!”
  - “We are a small people in the eyes of the world; but we have an understanding of the purposes of God, and the gift of the priesthood and the authority to act for God in the accomplishment of his will. The living and the dead are depending upon us for the truth and the power of salvation. The living must hear our message; and the dead are waiting for us to open the doors through which they may go on to a greater life in the great hereafter.”
April 1921 General Conference
- The Unifying Power of the Gospel
  - “Whether of high or of low degree, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, of quick or of slow intelligence, from Scandinavia, Germany, England or America, these people, because of the gospel and through the gospel, see alike, apparently think alike, and very largely act alike. There is something within this gospel that unifies all who accept it and who belong to it.”
  - “In a Church which declares that there is a graded salvation, within the ultimate reach of every human being, if he cares to accept of it, there can be no deep-seated fear of the hereafter, especially when we have been told that the lowest glory of this graded salvation is entirely beyond the understanding and wildest fancy of man.”
  - “Truth is always simple; the test of truth is simplicity. That which is dimly understood, which confuses the mind of man, is likely to be but partly true.”
  - “Many religions upon the face of the earth rest upon one isolated truth. Each has taken a great, glittering, .brilliant truth, and upon it has erected an elaborate system ; but because it is only one truth of many belonging to a great principle—which principle is not understood in full—the system of religion is not likely to prevail forever among men.”
  - “I want to bear you this testimony, my brethren and sisters, that we have in this Church the great, everlasting principles of truth, the basic laws of truth upon which we may erect the spiritual and religious structure of our lives, here and hereafter. I want to say also that it is my conviction that the greatest danger that may affect this Church at any time is to depart, ever so little, from these fundamental principles. All that we do, all that we plan to do, must be tied to the fundamental principles of the Gospel. Then we shall have no apostasy in this Church. The apostasies of past dispensations, have come ordinarily when some one has taken a glittering, desirable truth, and magnified it to the forgetfulness of the principle to which it belongs.”
  - “Some may say that this doctrine stops all progress. If we have solid, substantial, unchanging principles which may never be departed from, then how is progress possible? Yet, my brethren and sisters, you all know that the only real progress possible in this world is that which is based upon adherence to simple, general laws of truth. When man discovers some great law pertaining to the universe, and builds upon it, then he and science both make progress. The great principles or laws of truth may be likened to the great steel structure of one of our lofty office buildings—rigid, firm and bolted together so that it may not move or change—yet within those steel beams and girders, around them, above them, below them, are built floors and walls and doors and windows and decorations until the structure meets every want of those for whom it is intended.”
  - “May we also remember that to possess truth is only a part of the problem. We must use it also; and truth cannot be used properly or wisely unless we do, as has been explained here this afternoon, apply to it the authority of the Priesthood of God.”

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