“If you do not magnify your callings, God will hold you responsible for those whom you might have saved had you done your duty.”
Leadership
LDS Quotes on Leadership
“In the performance of our responsibilities, I have learned that when we heed a silent prompting and act upon it without delay, our Heavenly Father will guide our footsteps and bless our lives and the lives of others. I know of no experience more sweet or feelings more precious than to heed a prompting, only to discover that the Lord has answered another’s prayer through you.”
| General Conference, October 5, 2002
“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
“Any excuse, no matter how valid, always weakens character.”
“We humans have a lamentable tendency to spend more time theorizing reasons behind human suffering, than working to alleviate human suffering, and in imagining a heaven above, than creating a heaven in our homes and communities.”
“Effective teaching is the very essence of leadership in the church. Eternal life will come only as men and women are taught with such effectiveness that they change and discipline their lives. They cannot be coerced into righteousness or into heaven. They must be led, and that means teaching.”
| "How to Be a Teacher When Your Role as a Leader Requires You to Teach"
“To be effective Church leaders, we must learn this critical lesson: leadership in the Church is not so much about directing others as it is about our willingness to be directed by God.”
“If you want to get the spirit of your office and calling as a new president of a quorum, a new high [councilor], a new bishop [or, I might say, a Relief Society president]—try fasting for a period. I don’t mean just missing one meal, then eating twice as much the next meal. I mean really fasting, and praying during that period. It will do more to give you the real spirit of your office and calling and permit the Spirit to operate through you than anything I know.”
| The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson (1988), 331–32.
“If you were to select just two or three individuals in your life who have been most influential, what specifically did they do that was most helpful to you at a critical or important time in your life? On reflecting for a few moments, you are apt to conclude that such a person really cared for you, that he or she taught you something you needed to know. Reflect now upon your own performance.”
“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”