LDS Quotes on Change
“The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.”
| “Born of God,” Ensign, November 1985, p. 5
“A periodic review of the covenants we have made with the Lord will help us with our priorities and with balance in our lives. This review will help us see where we need to repent and change our lives to ensure that we are worthy of the promises that accompany our covenants and sacred ordinances. Working out our own salvation requires good planning and a deliberate, valiant effort.”
| “Keeping Life’s Demands in Balance,” Ensign, May 1987, 14.
“The gift of the Holy Ghost … quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands and purifies all the natural passions and affections; and adapts them, by the gift of wisdom, to their lawful use. It inspires, develops, cultivates and matures all the fine-toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindred feelings, and affections of our nature. It inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness, and charity. It develops beauty of person, form and features. It tends to health, vigor, animation, and social feeling. It invigorates all the faculties of the physical and intellectual man. It strengthens, and gives tone to the nerves. In short, it is, as it were, marrow to the bone, joy to the heart, light to the eyes, music to the ears, and life to the whole being”
“Our task on earth is to resist the conforming of our spirit to our natural environment with its allures and distractions, and to shape our affections, inclinations, and desires in the mold shown us by the Savior. This is repentance: a conscious choice, born out of contraries, to be shaped and directed into a genuine spiritual begetting after the image of God, in accordance with the seed of divine potential in all of us.”
“Therefore, what we insistently desire over time, is what we will eventually become and what we will receive in eternity.”
| “According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts,” Conference October 1996
“The Atonement of Jesus Christ does not just provide a way to clean up messes; it provides the purpose and desire to avoid making more messes. The Atonement doesn’t allow us to ignore our appetites or pretend they don’t matter, but to educate and elevate them.”
| The Continuous Atonement
Let us make peace with the past year. Let go of the emotional angst and noise, the frictions and annoyances that clutter our lives. May we grant each other our new possibilities instead of fixating on our past limitations. Let’s give the new Scrooge in each of us a chance to change.
“Have ye received his image in your countenances?” “Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into . . . a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares His power, joy, knowledge and eternity.”
| Mere Christianity
“The gospel causes men and women to reveal that which would have slept in their disposition until they dropped into their graves. The plan by which the Lord leads this people makes them reveal their thoughts and intents, and brings out every trait of disposition lurking in their beings.”
“I came to the understanding that if I employed the same qualifications I was using to think about my testimony of the church as to think about my relationship with my wife, our relationship would fizzle. Like the church, my wife has changed over the years. She is not the same woman I married and, frankly, I would be bored and unfulfilled if she were. I certainly don’t feel that she deceived me because I didn’t know everything about her when I married her, and I have never felt betrayed when I discovered more about her. It has never bothered me that my understanding of her continues to evolve. So should I feel betrayed when I discover new things about the church or start to understand how it has evolved?”
“Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men [and women] willing to be co-workers with God.”
“Conversion does not normally come all at once. . . . It comes in stages, until a person becomes at heart a new person.”
| “Bringing Peace and Healing to Your Soul”
“It is hard to know when we have done enough for the Atonement to change our natures and so qualify us for eternal life. And we don’t know how many days we will have to give the service necessary for that mighty change to come. But we know that we will have days enough if only we don’t waste them.”
| "This Day," Conference April 2007
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
“We can change our behavior. Our very desires can change. How? There is only one way. True change—permanent change—can come only through the healing, cleansing, and enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He loves you—each of you! He allows you to access His power as you keep His commandments, eagerly, earnestly, and exactly. It is that simple and certain. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of change!”
| Decisions for Eternity
“That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives and our character. What we are worshipping we are becoming.”
“Without the Redeemer, … repentance becomes simply miserable behavior modification.”
“To believe that weaknesses and deficiencies in your character are unchangeable is to reject the central truth of the plan of salvation. You are not cast in stone. You not only can change but you do change all of the time. You are a dynamic, changing, evolving being. You are always changing. You never stay the same. You cannot stand still.”
| "The Fourth Missionary"
“We need to come to terms with our desire to reach perfection and with our frustration when our accomplishments or our behaviors are less than perfect. I feel that one of the great myths we would do well to dispel is that we’ve come to earth to perfect ourselves, and nothing short of that will do. If I understand the teachings of the prophets of this dispensation correctly, we will not become perfect in this life, though we can make significant strides toward that goal. . . .I am also convinced of the fact that the speed with which we head along the straight and narrow path isn’t as important as the direction in which we are traveling. That direction, if it is leading toward eternal goals, is the all-important factor.”
| Ensign, May 1989, pp. 20-21
“I do not expect that any of us will ever become in mortality quite so perfect as God is perfect; but in the spheres in which we are called to act, and according to the capacity and breadth of intelligence that we possess, in our sphere and in the exercise of the talent, the ability and intelligence that God has given to us, we may become as perfect in our sphere as God is perfect in His higher and more exalted sphere. I believe that.”
| Conference Report, April 1915, p. 140
“We become like those things we habitually love and admire. And thus, as we study Christ’s life and live his teachings, we become more like him.”
| The Infinite Atonement
“The repenting sinner must suffer for his sins, but this suffering has a different purpose than punishment or payment. Its purpose is to change.”
“The remarkable examples in the scriptures are just that – remarkable and not typical. For most of us, the changes are more gradual and occur over time.”
God doesn’t care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and, with His help, where you are willing to go.
“Men and women who turn their lives over to God will find out that he can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace.”
| The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 361
| "Latter-day Saints Keep on Trying"
What we love determines what we seek. What we seek determines what we think and do. What we think and do determines who we are — and who we will become.
“The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior.”
| “Do Not Fear”
“When we’re tempted to give up, we must remember God is long-suffering, change is a process, and repentance is a pattern in our lives.”
| The Continuous Atonement
“Do not throw away a man or a woman, old or young. If they commit an evil today and another tomorrow, but wish to be Saints and to be forgiven, do you forgive them, not only seven times, but seventy times seven in a day, if their hearts are fully set to do right. Let us make it a point to pass over their weaknesses and say, “God bless you in trying to be better in time to come,” and act as wise stewards in the kingdom of God.”
| Journal of Discourses, 8:368
The miracle of the Atonement is not just that we can go home but that—miraculously—we can feel at home there. If Heavenly Father and His Son did not require faith and repentance, then there would be no desire to change.
Think of your friends and family members who have chosen to live without faith and without repentance. They don’t want to change. They are not trying to abandon sin and become comfortable with God. Rather, they are trying to abandon God and become comfortable with sin.
If the Father and the Son did not require covenants and bestow the gift of the Holy Ghost, then there would be no way to change. We would be left forever with only willpower, with no access to His power. If Heavenly Father and His Son did not require endurance to the end, then there would be no internalization of those changes over time. They would forever be surface and cosmetic rather than sinking inside us and becoming part of us—part of who we are. Put simply, if Jesus didn’t require practice, then we would never become Saints.
“First of all, if in the days ahead you not only see limitations in those around you but also find elements in your own life that don’t yet measure up to the messages you have heard this weekend, please don’t be cast down in spirit and don’t give up. The gospel, the Church, and these wonderful semiannual gatherings are intended to give hope and inspiration. They are not intended to discourage you. Only the adversary, the enemy of us all, would try to convince us that the ideals outlined in general conference are depressing and unrealistic, that people don’t really improve, that no one really progresses. And why does Lucifer give that speech? Because he knows he can’t improve, he can’t progress, that worlds without end he will never have a bright tomorrow. He is a miserable man bound by eternal limitations, and he wants you to be miserable too. Well, don’t fall for that. With the gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the strength of heaven to help us, we can improve, and the great thing about the gospel is we get credit for trying, even if we don’t always succeed.”
| “Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders among You”
“. . . we must be careful, as we seek to become more and more godlike, that we do not become discouraged and lose hope. Becoming Christlike is a lifetime pursuit and very often involves growth and change that is slow, almost imperceptible. The scriptures record remarkable accounts of men whose lives changed dramatically, in an instant. . . . But we must be cautious as we discuss these remarkable examples. Though they are real and powerful, they are the exception more than the rule. For every Paul, for every Enos, and for every King Lamoni, there are hundreds and thousands of people who find the process of repentance much more subtle, much more imperceptible. Day by day they move closer to the Lord, little realizing they are building a godlike life. They live quiet lives of goodness, service, and commitment. They are like the Lamanites, who the Lord said “were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.”
| “A Mighty Change of Heart,” Ensign, October 1989, p. 2
“Under the law of the Lord, a marriage, like a human life, is a precious, living thing. If our bodies are sick, we seek to heal them. We do not give up. While there is any prospect of life, we seek healing again and again. The same should be true of our marriages, and if we seek Him, the Lord will help us and heal us”
| (2007, May). Divorce. Ensign, 37(5), 70–73.
Would Alma truly have felt what he describes as ‘exquisite … joy’ if he thought that Christ saved him but left forever harmed those he had led away from the truth? Surely not. For Alma to feel complete peace, those he harmed also needed the opportunity to be made whole.
| Ensuring a Righteous Judgment - General Conference 2020
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.”
We are always progressing as long as we are striving to follow the Lord.
| An Especially Noble Calling - General Conference 2020
“Perfection is a long, hard journey with many pitfalls. It’s not attainable overnight. Eternal vigilance is the price of victory. Eternal vigilance is required in the subduing of enemies and in becoming the master of our lives. It cannot be accomplished in little spurts and disconnected efforts. There must be constant and valiant, purposeful living – righteous living. Do we have the power to attain this kind of abundance? The psalmist was inspired to write: What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.” (Ps. 8:4–6.) There are those today who say that man is the result of his environment and cannot rise above it. Those who justify mediocrity, failure, immorality of all kinds, and even weakness and criminality are certainly misguided. Surely the environmental conditions found in childhood and youth are an influence of power. But the fact remains that every normal soul has its free agency and the power to row against the current and to lift itself to new planes of activity and thought and development. Man can transform himself. Man must transform himself.”
| “The Abundant Life,” Ensign, October 1985, p. 5
“Our enmity toward God takes on many labels, such as rebellion, hard-heartedness, stiff-neckedness, unrepentant, puffed up, easily offended, and sign seekers. The proud wish God would agree with them. They aren’t interested in changing their opinions to agree with God’s.”
| “Beware of Pride,” Ensign, May 1989
“The vocabulary of sin and guilt and damnation has too often overwhelmed the restored gospel’s message of absolute love and powerfully grounded hopefulness. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, summarizing the almost universal misapprehension of overanxious Saints among us, we must learn to ‘distinguish more clearly between divine discontent and the devil’s dissonance, between dissatisfaction with self and disdain for self. We need the first and must shun the second. When conscience calls to us from the next ridge,’ he wrote, her purpose is to beckon not to scold.
“Rather than continuing to frame our lives in terms of deficiency and inadequacy, we would benefit from the perspective of Irenaeus, who emphasized the forward-looking process in which we should be engaged: becoming ‘perfected after the image and likeness of God.'”
“Holiness is the strength of the soul. It comes by faith and through obedience to God’s laws and ordinances. God then purifies the heart by faith, and the heart becomes purged from that which is profane and unworthy. When holiness is achieved by conforming to God’s will, one knows intuitively that which is wrong and that which is right before the Lord. Holiness speaks when there is silence, encouraging that which is good or reproving that which is wrong.”
“Notwithstanding the fact that through its misuse, political, economic, and personal liberty are lost, free agency will always endure because it is an eternal principle. However, the free agency possessed by any one person is increased or diminished by the use to which he puts it. Every wrong decision one makes restricts the area in which he can thereafter exercise his agency. The further one goes in the making of wrong decisions in the exercise of free agency, the more difficult it is for him to recover the lost ground. One can, by persisting long enough, reach the point of no return. He then becomes an abject slave. By the exercise of his free agency, he has decreased the area in which he can act, almost to the vanishing point.”
| “The Perfect Law of Liberty,” Ensign, Nov. 1981, p. 45
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
| Mother Night
“Charity is not an act but a way of life, a condition of the heart.”
| BYU Education Week 2005
“The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.”