“The more often [one] feels without acting, the less [one] will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less [he or she] will be able to feel.”
| The Screwtape Letters (New York: Macmillan, 1966), 61.
Agency
LDS Quotes on Agency
“I have heard people say, and members of the Church too, ‘I have a right to do as I please.’ My answer is: No, you do not. You haven’t any right at all to do just as you please. There is only one right that you have, and that is to do just what I read to you: keep the commandments of Jesus Christ. He has a perfect right to tell us so. We have no right to refuse. I do not care who the man is; I do not care where he lives, or what he is – when the gospel of Jesus Christ is presented to him, he has no right to refuse to receive it. He has the privilege. He is not compelled to receive it, because our Father in heaven has given to everyone of us, in the Church and out, the gift of free agency. That free agency gives us the privilege to accept and be loyal to our Lord’s commandments, but it has never given us the right to reject them. Every man who rejects the commandments of our Father in heaven is rebellious.”
| Conference Report, April 1967, pp. 120-21
“The old saying ‘The Lord is voting for me, and Lucifer is voting against me, but it is my vote that counts’ describes a doctrinal certainty that our agency is more powerful than the adversary’s will. Agency is precious. We can foolishly, blindly give it away, but it cannot be forcibly taken from us.
“There is also an age-old excuse: ‘The devil made me do it.’ Not so! He can deceive you and mislead you, but he does not have the power to force you or anyone else to transgress or to keep you in transgression.”
| “Cleansing the Inner Vessel”
“Had agency come to man without the Atonement, it would have been a fatal gift.”
Had agency come to man without the Atonement, it would have been a fatal gift.
“The highest challenge we have in mortality is to use our free agency well, making right choices in the interplay of time and talents. Time is one of the blessings we are given. Generally speaking, it is we who let ourselves get fragmented too much. It is the result of not establishing (and then persisting in) certain priorities in our life. I am not denying the reality of the challenge you put, but neither do I think it is unmanageable.”
| Deposition of a Disciple, 68
“Critical to our knowledge of the plan of happiness is an understanding of the great governing principle of agency.”
“Next to the bestowal of life itself, the right to direct that life is God’s greatest gift to man. . . . Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth can give. It is inherent in the spirit of man. It is a divine gift to every normal being. . . . Everyone has this most precious of all life’s endowments – the gift of free agency – man’s inherited and inalienable right.”
| Improvement Era, Feb. 1962, p. 86
“As we consider his incomprehensible suffering for us, surely among the saddest five words our Savior ever uttered were these: ‘Will ye also go away?’ When times are difficult, we can make the choice to turn away from him and struggle through our afflictions alone, or we can make the choice to turn to him and the Father’s plan, finding that we will ‘suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ.’ My prayer for each of us is to accept the invitation of the sacred Christmas hymn to ‘come, let us adore him’ and our Heavenly Father for his glorious and perfect plan!”
| "Oh, Come, Let Us Adore Him—the Plan!"
“What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love.”