LDS Quotes on Knowledge
“We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we can’t be wise with other men’s wisdom. That’s because wisdom isn’t a body of information. It’s the moral quality of knowing what you don’t know and figuring out a way to handle your ignorance, uncertainty, and limitation.”
| The Road to Character
“Humility is teachableness – an ability to realize that all virtues and abilities are not concentrated in one’s self. . . . Humility is never accusing nor contentious. . . . Humility is repentant and seeks not to justify its follies. It is forgiving others in the realization that there may be errors of the same kind or worse chalked up against itself. . . . Humility makes no bid for popularity and notoriety; demands no honors. . . . It is not self-abasement – the hiding in the corner, the devaluation of everything one does or thinks or says, but it is the doing of one’s best in every case and leaving of one’s acts, expressions and accomplishments to largely speak for themselves.”
| BYU Speeches of the Year, January 16, 1963
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
“In fact, the more we read the scriptures, the more meaningful our learning becomes. That is because scriptural learning is cumulative. Everything we learn becomes the foundation for greater learning.”
“Accomplish personal goals in each of four categories . . . : spiritual development; physical development; educational, personal, and career development; and citizenship and social development.”
| "Fulfilling Our Duty to God," October 2001:
You never totally move beyond faith as hope; it is not a box we check off and say, “I am done.” Rather, we begin again and gain experience with a new principle. It spirals upward as a helix, building and continuing. Here is how that occurs. We move from level of faith to level of faith through desire, a willingness to experiment and act, and then receiving a spiritual confirmation as evidence of things not seen. This process and experience bolster our faith. Consequently, we exhibit an increased willingness to experiment and receive an even greater confirmation. Our confidence waxes stronger, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.
| Presentation at BYU-Idaho
“The tuition of diligence and learning by faith must be paid to obtain and personally ‘own’ such knowledge.”
“Humility is essential to the acquiring of spiritual knowledge. To be humble is to be teachable. Humility permits you to be tutored by the Spirit and to be taught from sources inspired by the Lord, such as the scriptures. The seeds of personal growth and understanding germinate and flourish in the fertile soil of humility. Their fruit is spiritual knowledge to guide you here and hereafter.”
| Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge, Ensign Nov. 1993 pg 87
“Faith, to be faith, must center around something that is not known. Faith, to be faith, must go beyond that for which there is confirming evidence. Faith, to be faith, must go into the unknown. Faith, to be faith, must walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness”
| “Faith.” Improvement Era (Nov 1968) 71:60–63.
“I know of no other practice which will make one more attractive in conversation than to be well-read in a variety of subjects. There is a great potential within each of us to go on learning. Regardless of our age, unless there be serious illness, we can read, study, drink in the writings of wonderful men and women. It is never too late to learn. ”
| Stand a Little Taller