LDS Quotes on Agency
“I have learned an important lesson. Yes, God can make some good come from evil. But even He, in all His majesty, won’t make the evil go away. Men are free. He won’t control them. There is wickedness in this world.”
| My Story: Elizabeth Smart
“You are right now the sum total of what you have thought, said, seen, heard and done. What you think, say, do, hear and see, cause you to change; to change for good or evil; to become either stronger or weaker; to either internalize the qualities of light or the qualities of darkness. You are responsible for who you are and you are responsible for who you will become.”
| “The Fourth Missionary”
“The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!”
“The earth did not come by chance nor by accident. It is the result of a creation that is based on purpose, on agency, on choice. It accords with laws which were in force long before the plan was every laid down. All of it has order; all of it was planned for us. The beauty and precision of the universe, the endless variety of plant and animal life—all testify of a plan and a creator.”
| The Earth Shall Teach Thee, 12.
“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.
“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.”
“Our faith in God must be strong, therefore, not only in behalf of ourselves and our own trials, but also upon seeing those human conditions involving human wickedness which are truly wrenching but which are permitted by God because of God-given but morally misused agency.”
