“No other success can compensate for failure in the home.”
| Conference April 1935
Parenting
LDS Quotes on Parenting
“If children are to be brought up in the way they should go, to be good citizens here and happy hereafter, they must be taught. It is idle to suppose that children will grow up good, while surrounded with wickedness, without cultivation. It is folly to suppose that they can become learned without education.”
| Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 273
“If I had a choice of educating my daughters or my sons because of opportunity constraints, I would choose to educate my daughters”
There is an old Relief Society story about a child who came in as his mother was putting the finishing touches on a cake. He asked: “Who are we giving that away to?” There is still merit in this little incident, as we can see that he is from a home where they are used to giving service to others.
| Finding Joy by Serving Others
“As parents, we should remember that our lives may be the book from the family library which the children most treasure.”
“It was the Master himself who said, “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). How could he have spoken in stronger terms?
“If there be any within the sound of my voice who may be guilty of such practice, I urge you with all of the capacity of which I am capable to stop it, to run from it, to get help, to plead with the Lord for forgiveness and make amends to those whom you have offended. God will not be mocked concerning the abuse of his little ones.”
| “Save the Children,” Nov. 1994, p. 54
“It’s not living the gospel thats hard. Its life that’s hard…How often do we make the mistake of talking to our youth about how hard it is…Shouldn’t we instead be focusing on the doctrine of joy…?”
| No Doubt About It
“Could wicked and malicious beings, who had irradiated every feeling of love form their bosoms, be permitted to propagate their species, the offspring would partake of all the evil, wicked, and malicious nature of their parents. . . . It is for this reason that God will not permit the fallen angels to multiply: it is for this reason that God has ordained marriages for the righteous only: it is for this reason that God will put a final stop to the multiplication of the wicked after this life: it is for this reason that none but those who have kept the celestial law will be permitted to multiply after the resurrection.”
| “Power and Eternity of the Priesthood,” The Seer, 1853, 156–57.
“Happiness in marriage and parenthood can exceed a thousand times any other happiness.”
“If we had paid no more attention to our plants than we have to our children, we would now be living in a jungle of weeds.”
| In Elbert Hubbard’s Scrap Book, New York: Wm. H. Wise and Co., 1923, p. 227.