“Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.”
| "Finding Joy in the Journey," Conference October 2008
Charity
LDS Quotes on Charity
We obtain a remission of our sins by pleading to God, who compassionately responds, but we retain a remission of our sins by compassionately responding to the poor who plead to us.
“Indolent and unworthy the beggar may be—but that is not your concern: It is better, said Joseph Smith, to feed ten impostors than to run the risk of turning away one honest petition.”
| Approaching Zion
“No, the Lord doesn’t really need us to take care of the poor, but we need this experience; for it is only through our learning how to take care of each other that we develop within us the Christlike love and disposition necessary to qualify us to return to his presence.”
| “Living Welfare Principles,” General Conference, October 1981
“The best and most clear indicator that we are progressing spiritually and coming unto Christ is the way we treat other people.”
“We are challenged to move through a process of conversion toward that status and condition called eternal life. This is achieved not just by doing what is right, but by doing it for the right reason – for the pure love of Christ. The Apostle Paul illustrated this in his famous teaching about the importance of charity. The reason charity never fails and the reason charity is greater than even the most significant acts of goodness he cited is that charity, “the pure love of Christ,” is not an act but a condition or state of being. Charity is attained through a succession of acts that result in a conversion. Charity is something one becomes. Thus, as Moroni declared, “except men shall have charity they cannot inherit” the place prepared for them in the mansions of the Father.”
| Ensign, November 2000, p. 32-34
“But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because he loves us.”
“You are good. But it is not enough just to be good. You must be good for something. You must contribute good to the world. The world must be a better place for your presence. And the good that is in you must spread to others. In this world so filled with problems, so constantly threatened by dark and evil challenges, you can and must rise above mediocrity, above indifference.”
| Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes
“It has sometimes been asked whether God commands certain things because they are right, or whether certain things are right because God commands them…I empathically embrace the first alternative. The second might lead to the abominable conclusion that charity is good only because God arbitrarily commanded it — that He might equally well have commanded us to hate Him and one another and that hatred would then have been right. I believe, on the contrary, that ‘they err who think that of the will of God to do this or that there is no reason besides His will.'”
“Perhaps the world little notes nor long remembers individual acts of kindness – but people do.”