“No doctrine is more basic, no doctrine embraces a greater incentive to personal righteousness . . . as does the wondrous concept that man can be as his Maker.”
| The Promised Messiah: The First Coming of Christ
“We receive a remission of our sins through baptism and through the sacrament. The Spirit will not dwell in an unclean tabernacle, and when men receive the Spirit, they become clean and pure and spotless.”
| A New Witness for the Articles of Faith
“Baptism is a once-in-a-lifetime ordinance. We are baptized on one occasion only—for the remission of our sins, for entrance into the earthly church, and for future admission into the kingdom of heaven.”
| A New Witness for the Articles of Faith
“Sins are remitted not in the waters of baptism, as we say in speaking figuratively, but when we receive the Holy Ghost. It is the Holy Spirit of God that erases carnality and brings us into a state of righteousness. We become clean when we actually receive the fellowship and companionship of the Holy Ghost. It is then that sin and dross and evil are burned out of our souls as though by fire.”
| A New Witness for the Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985), 290
“faith and truth cannot be separated; if there is to be faith . . . there must first be truth”
| Mormon Doctrine. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966.
“We are to solve our own problems and then to counsel with the Lord in prayer and receive a spiritual confirmation that our decisions are correct.”
| “Why the Lord Ordained Prayer,” Ensign, Jan. 1976, 11.
“Before we can write the gospel in our own book of life we must learn the gospel as it is written in the books of scripture. The Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants [and the Pearl of Great Price]—each of them individually and all of them collectively—contain the fulness of the everlasting gospel.”
| “Holy Writ: Published Anew,” regional representatives seminar, April 2, 1982
“A person may get converted in a moment, miraculously. But that is not the way it happens with most people. With most people, conversion [spiritual rebirth and the accompanying remission of sins] is a process; and it goes step by step, degree by degree, level by level, from a lower state to a higher, from grace to grace, until the time that the individual is wholly turned to the cause of righteousness. Now this means that an individual overcomes one sin today and another sin tomorrow. He perfects his life in one field now, and in another field later on. And the conversion process goes on until it is completed, until we become, literally, as the Book of Mormon says, saints of God instead of natural men.”
| “Be Ye Converted” (address given at the BYU First Stake Quarterly Conference, 11 February 1968), 12.
“Being born again is a gradual thing, except in a few isolated instances that are so miraculous they get written up in the scriptures. As far as the generality of the members of the Church are concerned, we are born again by degrees, and we are born again to added light and added knowledge and added desires for righteousness as we keep the commandments.”
| “Jesus Christ and Him Crucified,” 1976 Devotional Speeches of the Year
“A child is an adult spirit in a newly born body, a body capable of growing and maturing according to the providence of Him whose spirit children we all are.”
| “The Salvation of Little Children”
“Choose the one hundred most basic doctrines of the gospel, and under each doctrine make two parallel columns, one headed Bible and the other Book of Mormon. Then place in these columns what each book of scripture says about each doctrine. The end result will show, without question, that in ninety-five of the one hundred cases, the Book of Mormon teaching is clearer, plainer, more expansive, and better than the biblical word. If there is any question in anyone’s mind about this, let him take the test—a personal test.”
| "A New Witness for the Articles of Faith"
“After baptism, all men sin. None obey the Lord’s law in perfection; none remain clean and spotless and fit for the association of Gods and angels.”
| A New Witness for the Articles of Faith
“The most important single thing any latter day saint ever does in this world is to marry the right person in the right place and by the right authority.”
“The tongue is the mirror of the soul. Spoken words reveal the intents, desires, and feelings of the heart. We shall give an account before the judgment bar for every spoken word, and shall be condemned for our idle, intemperate, profane, and false words. Implicit in this principle of judgment is the fact that we can control what we say. And what better test can there be of a godly self-control than the ability to tame the tongue!”
| Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, Vol. 3: Colossians-Revelation (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994), 262.
“Our deeds, in large measure, are children of our prayers. Having prayed, we act; our proper petitions have the effect of charting a righteous course of conduct for us.”
| “Why the Lord Ordained Prayer,” Ensign, January 1976, 12.
“Above all the attributes of godliness and perfection, charity is the one most devoutly to be desired. Charity is more than love, far more; it is everlasting love, perfect love, the pure love of Christ which endureth forever. It is love so centered in righteousness that the possessor has no aim or desire except for the eternal welfare of his own soul and for the souls of those around him.”
| Mormon Doctrine, p. 121
“[The gifts of the spirit are] infinite in number and endless in their manifestations because God himself is infinite and endless, and because the needs of those who receive them are as numerous, varied, and different as there are people in the kingdom.”
| A New Witness for the Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985)
“One of the seven greatest heresies is that you must be perfect before you die.”
[A sacrament is] “a pledge and promise on man’s part to forsake personal sins, knowing that if he does so he will be blessed by the Lord. When the saints partake of the ordinance of the sacrament, they promise not simply to keep the commandments in general, but also to serve and conform and obey where they as individuals have fallen short in the past. Every man’s sacraments are thus his own; he alone knows his failures and sins, and he alone must overcome the world and the flesh so that he can have fellowship with the saints.”
| A New Witness for the Articles of Faith
“We have made covenants so to do solemn, sacred, holy covenants, pledging ourselves before gods and angels. We are under covenant to live the law of obedience. We are under covenant to live the law of sacrifice. We are under covenant to live the law of consecration. It is our privilege to consecrate our time, talents, and means to build up his kingdom. We are called upon to sacrifice, in one degree or another, for the furtherance of his work. Obedience is essential to salvation; so, also, is service; and so, also, are consecration and sacrifice.”
| "Obedience, Consecration, and Sacrifice", Ensign, May 1975, 50
“Death can be comforting and sweet and precious or it can thrust upon us all the agonies and sulphurous burnings of an endless hell. And we—each of us individually—make the choice as to which it shall be.”
“the sacrament of the Lord’s supper is an ordinance of salvation in which all the faithful must participate if they are to live and reign with him.”
| The Promised Messiah
“Men are not born equal. They enter this life with the talents and capacities developed in preexistence…The talent of greatest worth was that of spirituality, for it enables us to hearken to the Holy Spirit and accept that gospel which prepares us for eternal life.”
| A New Witness for the Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985), 34
“True religion is not a matter of intellectuality or of worldly prominence or renown, but of spirituality.”
| Doctrinal New Testament Commentary (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1971), 2:316
“All of the gifts of the Spirit must be dispensed in an orderly way, according to the needs and conditions of the moment. All the affairs of the earthly kingdom must be administered as changing needs and circumstances require.”
“True worship goes on seven days a week. Sacraments and vows and covenants of renewal ascend to heaven daily in personal prayer.”
| A New Witness for the Articles of Faith
“The most important single thing any latter day saint ever does in this world is to marry the right person in the right place and by the right authority.”
“People who study the scriptures add a dimension to their lives that nobody else gets and that can’t be gained in any way except by studying the scriptures. There’s an increase in faith and a desire to do what’s right and a feeling of inspiration and understanding that can’t come in any other way.”
“All of those called to the ministry…are given the gifts needed to perform the work whereunto they are called. These gifts are always the ones needed for the particular work at hand.”
It is not, never has been, and never will be the design and purpose of the Lord—however much we seek him in prayer—to answer all our problems and concerns without struggle and effort on our part. This mortality is a probationary estate. … We are being tested to see how we will respond in various situations; how we will decide issues; what course we will pursue while we are here walking, not by sight, but by faith.
| Ensign, Jan. 1976, p. 11
“Work on the projects ahead, and when you have taken one step in the acquiring of faith, it will give you the assurance in your soul that you can go forward and take the next step, and by degrees your power or influence will increase until eventually, in this world or the next, you will say to the Mt. Zerin’s [see Ether 12:30] in your life, “Be thou removed.” You will say to whatever encumbers your course of eternal progress, “Depart,” and it will be so”
| "Lord, Increase Our Faith,” BYU Speeches of the Year, October 1967, p. 11