LDS Quotes on Character
“The kind of life you live, your disposition, your very nature, will be determined by your thoughts, of which your acts are but the outward expression. Thought is the seed of action.”
| Teachings of Presidents of the Church: David O. McKay, 23: Developing a Christlike Character
For the natural man, sacrifice does not come naturally. He has an insatiable appetite for more. . . .Faith isn’t tested so much when the cupboard is full as when it is bare. In these defining moments, the crisis doesn’t create one’s character – it reveals it. The crisis is the test.
| Elder Lynn G. Robbins, General Conference, Ensign, May 2005
| Cherished Experiences from the Writings of President David O. McKay p. 24
“Many Latter-day Saints know the Church is true but have unhealthy feelings about their own inadequacies, real or imagined. The scriptures inform us that we all have weaknesses and that there is a place for them in our spiritual progress: “If men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them” (Ether 12:27)…Too often we wallow in our weaknesses so much that we do not allow “weak things” to “become strong.” Our condition is frequently misdiagnosed as humility, when in reality it is a lack of confidence…What is the difference between the two? To be humble is to recognize our utter dependence upon the Lord. We are conscious of our strengths, but we do not exalt ourselves and become prideful, for we know that all good things ultimately come from God. We are conscious of our weaknesses, but we know the Lord can use those very weaknesses to bless our lives and that through Him, as we learn from the book of Ether, our weaknesses can become strengths…To lack confidence is to have feelings of low self-worth. We are preoccupied with our weaknesses, and we lack faith in the Lord’s ability to use those weaknesses for our good. We do not understand our inestimable worth in the eyes of God, nor do we appreciate our divine potential. Ironically, both pride and a lack of self-confidence cause us to focus excessively on ourselves and to deny the power of God in our lives.”
| “Confidence and Self-Worth,” Ensign, January 2005, pp. 32-35
“We are poor in character when we think getting by is a substitute for doing our best.”
“Look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”
“A homespun definition of Christlike character might be the integrity to do the right thing at the right time in the right way. Don’t be idle. Don’t be wasteful.”
