Quotes By Elder Jeffery R. Holland
Called in 1994, Elder Jeffery R. Holland currently serves as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Elder Holland has authored many books including, Broken Things to Mend and To Mothers: Carrying the Torch of Faith and Family. Elder Holland is known for his quick wit, his tender approach toward gospel topics, and his extensive knowledge of English literature.
“Like thieves in the night, unwelcome thought can and do seek entrance to our minds. But we don’t have to throw open the door, serve them tea and crumpets, and tell them where the silverware is kept! Throw the rascals out! Replace lewd thoughts with hopeful messages an joyful memories; picture the faces of those who love you and would be shattered if you let them down.”
| Place No More for the Enemy of My Soul, Conference April 2009
“Love. Healing. Help. Hope. The power of Christ to counter all troubles in all times—including the end of times. That is the safe harbor God wants for us in personal or public days of despair. That is the message with which the Book of Mormon begins, and that is the message with which it ends, calling all to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him.”6 That phrase—taken from Moroni’s final lines of testimony, written 1,000 years after Lehi’s vision—is a dying man’s testimony of the only true way.”
| "Safety for the Soul," Conference October 2009
“The crowning characteristic of love is always loyalty.”
| (2012, November). The first great commandment. Ensign, 42(11), 83–85.
“If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face, bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can pass, let it pass,” then little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way.”
| Missionary Work and the Atonement
“The simple truth is that we cannot comprehend the Atonement and Resurrection of Christ and we will not adequately appreciate the unique purpose of His birth or His death-in other words, there is no way to truly celebrate Christmas or Easter- without understanding that there was an actual Adam and Eve who fell from an actual Eden, with all the consequences that fall carried with it.”
| Where Justice, Love, and Mercy Meet (April 2015)
“Perhaps we do not always attach that kind of meaning to our weekly sacramental service. How ‘sacred’ and how ‘holy’ is it? Do we see it as our [own personal] passover, remembrance of our safety and deliverance and redemption?”
| “‘This Do in Remembrance of Me,’” Ensign, November 1995, 68;
Our only hope for true perfection is in receiving it as a gift from heaven–we can’t “earn” it. Thus, the grace of Christ offers us not only salvation from sorrow and sin and death but also salvation from our own persistent self-criticism.
| Be Ye Therefore Perfect--Eventually
“Envy is a mistake that just keeps on giving. Obviously we suffer a little when some misfortune befalls us, but envy requires us to suffer all good fortune that befalls everyone we know! What a bright prospect that is—downing another quart of pickle juice every time anyone around you has a happy moment!”1
| Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Laborers in the Vineyard,” Ensign, May 2012, 31–32.
“Keep your eyes on your dreams, however distant and far away. Live to see the miracles of repentance and forgiveness, of trust and divine love that will transform your life today, tomorrow, and forever. That is a New Year’s resolution I ask you to keep.”
| The Best Is Yet to Be