Charity

LDS Quotes on Charity

“We need to learn, practice, study, know and understand how angels live with each other. When this community comes to the point to be perfectly honest and upright, you will never find a poor person; none will lack, all with have sufficient. Every man, woman, and child will have all they need just as soon as they all become honest. When the majority of the community are dishonest, it maketh the honest portion poor, for the dishonest serve and enrich themselves at their expense.”

Brigham Young  |  Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 232

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“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.'”

CS Lewis  |  The Problem of Pain

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Neal A. Maxwell Headshot

“Even the gifts of God are of little final use, if one has not developed the quality of charity. I hope we understand the implications of those words. Without charity we can’t go to the upper rooms of the celestial kingdom. It is just as essential as baptism. So what we are to do and what we are to be are incredibly important.”

Elder Neal A. Maxwell  |  address at New Mission Presidents Seminar, Church News, July 2, 1994, p. 5

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“Perhaps the world little notes nor long remembers individual acts of kindness – but people do.”

Herm Albright

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“Above all the attributes of godliness and perfection, charity is the one most devoutly to be desired. Charity is more than love, far more; it is everlasting love, perfect love, the pure love of Christ which endureth forever. It is love so centered in righteousness that the possessor has no aim or desire except for the eternal welfare of his own soul and for the souls of those around him.”

Bruce R. McConkie  |  Mormon Doctrine, p. 121

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“The caring for the poor and the handicapped and those who need our help is a main purpose and an absolute requirement in fulfilling the royal law of loving our neighbors as ourselves. You will remember the great sermon of Amulek on prayer, in which he tells the people to pray and tells them how often to pray – morning, night, and noon – and tells them where to pray and how to pray and what to pray for. He goes into great detail and then he says that “after ye have done all these things, if ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need – I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith.”

Marion G. Romney  |  Conference Report, April 1978

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“Benevolence in its fullest sense is the sum of moral excellence, and comprehends every other virtue. It is the motive that prompts us to do good to others and leads us to live our life for Christ’s sake. All acts of kindness . . . of forgiveness, of charity, of love, spring from this divine attribute.”

David O. McKay  |  “Christ, the Light of Humanity,” Improvement Era, June 1968, 4.

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“The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles of ‘Mormonism.’ ” That thought ought to inspire and motivate all of us because I feel that friendship is a fundamental need of our world. I think in all of us there is a profound longing for friendship, a deep yearning for the satisfaction and security that close and lasting relationships can give. Perhaps one reason the scriptures make little specific mention of the principle of friendship is because it should be manifest quite naturally as we live the gospel. In fact, if the consummate Christian attribute of charity has a first cousin, it is friendship.”

Marlin K. Jensen  |  Friendship: A Gospel Principle, Ensign, May 1999, 64

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“We hope that through the payment of liberal fast offerings there will be more than enough to provide for the needs of the less fortunate. If every member of this church observed the fast and contributed generously, the poor and the needy – not only of the Church, but many others as well, would be blessed and provided for. Every giver would be blessed in body and spirit, and the hungry would be fed, the naked clothed according to need.”

Gordon B. Hinckley  |  “Rise to a Larger Vision of the Work,” Ensign, May 1990, p. 95

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Neal A. Maxwell Headshot

“We, more than others, should carry jumper and tow cables not only in our cars, but also in our hearts, by which means we can send the needed boost or charge of encouragement or the added momentum to mortal neighbors.”

Elder Neal A. Maxwell  |  All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience

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