LDS Quotes on Decisions
“Life offers you two precious gifts. One is time, the other, freedom of choice—the freedom to buy with your time what you will. You are free to exchange your allotment of time for thrills. You may trade it for base desires. You may invest it in greed. You may purchase with it vanity; you may spend your time in pursuit of material things. Yours is the freedom to choose. But these are not bargains, for in them you find no lasting satisfaction.”
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.
“What are the three most important decisions? First, what will be my faith? Second, whom shall I marry? Third, what will be my life’s work?”
| "Decisions Determine Destiny"
“You have agency, and you are free to choose. But there is actually no free agency. Agency has its price. You have to pay the consequences of your choices.”
| On the Wings of Eagles, BYU Devotional, July 2006
While I was serving as the president of Brigham Young University–Idaho, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland came to the campus in December 1998…As our time together was drawing to a close, I asked Elder Holland, “If you could teach these students just one thing, what would it be?”
He answered:
“We are witnessing an ever greater movement toward polarity. The middle-ground options will be removed from us as Latter-day Saints. The middle of the road will be withdrawn.
“If you are treading water in the current of a river, you will go somewhere. You simply will go wherever the current takes you. Going with the stream, following the tide, drifting in the current will not do.
“Choices have to be made. Not making a choice is a choice. Learn to choose now.”
| "We Will Prove Them Herewith"
“It is interesting to me that one of the central elements of the word character is created by the letters A, C, and T. As we already have seen in the examples of Christ’s character from the New Testament, the nature and consistency of how one acts reveals in a powerful way his or her true character.”
| "The Character of Christ", Jan 25, 2003
“I can’t stress too strongly that decisions determine destiny. You can’t make eternal decisions without eternal consequences.
“May I provide a simple formula by which you can measure the choices which confront you. It’s easy to remember, sometimes difficult to apply: You can’t be right by doing wrong; you can’t be wrong by doing right. Your personal conscience always warns you as a friend before it punishes you as a judge.”
| "Decisions Determine Destiny"
“It has been said by one, years ago, that history turns on small hinges, and so do people’s lives. Our lives will depend upon the decisions which we make—for decisions determine destiny.”
| "Decisions Determine Destiny"
“We want a script, and we find we stand before a blank canvas. We expect a road map, and we find we have only a compass. We have yet to learn, as the poet John Ciardi wrote, that ‘clean white paper, waiting under a pen, is a gift beyond human history and hurt and heaven.”
“The man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder—a waif, a nothing, a no man. Have a purpose in life, and, having it, throw such strength of mind and muscle into your work as God has given you.”