LDS Quotes on Potential
Moral creativity does not mean making up new morals. God’s law is God’s law. Rather, moral creativity has to do with the kind of creativity needed in order to be moral. It has to do with the kind of creativity needed to break bad habits. Or the kind needed to breathe life back into broken relationships. Or the kind needed to unbalance cycles of anger or violence. Or the kind needed to see past prejudices. Or the kind needed to be something more.
“Men and women who turn their lives over to God will find out that he can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace.”
“People truly matter more than stars do. Despite their longevity, we have never seen an immortal star, but, thanks to Jesus, we are immortal.”
“Create a masterpiece of your life. No matter our age, circumstances, or abilities, each one of us can create something remarkable of his life.”
“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!”
“We have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods.”
| Adversus Haereses (Irenaeus Against Heresies) book 4, chapter 38
“David saw himself as a shepherd, but the Lord saw him as a king of Israel. Joseph of Egypt served as a slave, but the Lord saw him as a seer. Mormon wore the armor of a soldier, but the Lord saw him as a prophet.”
“The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.”
| “Born of God,” Ensign, November 1985, p. 5
“Let us remember, too, that greatness is not always a matter of the scale of one’s life, but of the quality of one’s life. True greatness is not always tied to the scope of our tasks, but to the quality of how we carry out our tasks whatever they are. In that attitude, let us give our time, ourselves, and our talents to the things that really matter now, things which will still matter a thousand years from now.”
| “First Presidency Message: A Gift of Gratitude,” Liahona, December 1977, p. 1
| Jesus Christ Is the Strength of Youth
“ ’Father’ is the noblest title a man can be given. It is more than a biological role. It signifies a patriarch, a leader, an exemplar, a confidant, a teacher, a hero, a friend and, ultimately, a perfect being.”
“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”
| Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes
“Addictions often begin subtly. Addictions are thin threads of repeated action that weave themselves into thick bonds of habit. Negative habits have the potential to become consuming addictions.
“These binding chains of addiction can have many forms, like pornography, alcohol, sex, drugs, tobacco, gambling, food, work, the Internet, or virtual reality. Satan, our common enemy, has many favorite tools he uses to rob us of our divine potential to accomplish our mission in the Lord’s kingdom. It saddens our Heavenly Father to see how willingly some of His noble sons extend their wrists to accept the chains of devastating addictions.
“Brethren, we bear the eternal priesthood of Almighty God. We are truly sons of the Most High and are endowed with unspeakable potential. We are designed to soar freely through the heavens. We are not meant to be shackled to the earth, imprisoned in straitjackets of our own making.”
| “Are You Sleeping through the Restoration?” LDS General Conference
“None of us will become perfect in a day or a month or a year. We will not accomplish it in a lifetime, but we can begin now, starting with our more obvious weaknesses and gradually converting them into strengths.”
| Standing for Something
The Lord loves each of us too much to merely let us go on being what we now are, for he knows what we have the possibility to become!
| “In Him All Things Hold Together”
“The gospel causes men and women to reveal that which would have slept in their disposition until they dropped into their graves. The plan by which the Lord leads this people makes them reveal their thoughts and intents, and brings out every trait of disposition lurking in their beings.”
“We were born in the image of God our Father; He begat us like unto Himself. There is the nature of Deity in the composition of our spiritual organization. In our spiritual birth, our Father transmitted to us the capabilities, powers and faculties which He possessed, as much so as the child on its mother’s bosom possesses, although in an undeveloped state, the faculties, powers and susceptibilities of its parent.”
| in Eliza R. Snow, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, 335
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”
“The true God [referring to the Father], then, is ‘The God,’ and those who are formed after Him are gods, images, as it were, of Him the prototype.”
| Origen, Commentary on John 2:2, in The Gospel of Peter, the Diatessaron of Tatian, vol. 9 of Ante-Nicene Fathers
God is weaving his tapestry according to his own grand design. All flesh is in his hands. It is not our prerogative to counsel him. It is our responsibility and our opportunity to be at peace in our minds and in our hearts, and to know that he is God, that this is his work, and that he will not permit it to fail.
We have no need to fear. We have no need to worry. We have no need to speculate. Our imperative need is to be found doing our duty individually in the callings which have come to us.
| “He Slumbers Not, nor Sleeps,” Ensign, May 1983
“There is no more compelling motivation to worthwhile endeavor than the knowledge that we are children of God, that God expects us to do something with our lives, and that He will give us help when help is sought.”
| Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes
“The more we sense…our ultimate potential, the more determined we become to achieve it. It’s the difference between your mother hounding you to practice the piano and reaching the point where you want to do it yourself. You simply will not be denied the ultimate reward and the joy of the Big Finish.”
| No Doubt About It
“It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future – sub specie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.”
| Mean's Search for Meaning
“Do not let the memories of your past limit the potential of your future. There are no limits to what you can achieve on your journey through life, except in your mind.”
| The Light in the Heart
“In this method, you don’t ask, What do I want from life? You ask a different set of questions: What does life want from me? What are my circumstances calling me to do? In this scheme of things we don’t create our lives; we are summoned by life.”
| The Road to Character
“Satan would rather that you define yourself by your sins instead of your divine potential.”
| Four Titles, April 2013 General Conference
“One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”
“God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. . . . It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converse with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did.”
| Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith
“A horse sires a horse, a man begets man, a god brings forth a god.”
| “The Gospel of Philip (II, 3)
“Our Father knew exactly what He was doing when He created us. He made us enough alike to love each other but enough different that we would need to unite our strengths and stewardships to create a whole. Neither man nor woman is perfect or complete without the other. Thus, no marriage … is likely to reach its full potential until husbands and wives … work together in unity of purpose, respecting and relying upon each other’s strengths.”
| It Is Not Good for Man or Woman to Be Alone
“We need to come to terms with our desire to reach perfection and with our frustration when our accomplishments or our behaviors are less than perfect. I feel that one of the great myths we would do well to dispel is that we’ve come to earth to perfect ourselves, and nothing short of that will do. If I understand the teachings of the prophets of this dispensation correctly, we will not become perfect in this life, though we can make significant strides toward that goal. . . .I am also convinced of the fact that the speed with which we head along the straight and narrow path isn’t as important as the direction in which we are traveling. That direction, if it is leading toward eternal goals, is the all-important factor.”
| Ensign, May 1989, pp. 20-21
“I do not expect that any of us will ever become in mortality quite so perfect as God is perfect; but in the spheres in which we are called to act, and according to the capacity and breadth of intelligence that we possess, in our sphere and in the exercise of the talent, the ability and intelligence that God has given to us, we may become as perfect in our sphere as God is perfect in His higher and more exalted sphere. I believe that.”
| Conference Report, April 1915, p. 140
“We become like those things we habitually love and admire. And thus, as we study Christ’s life and live his teachings, we become more like him.”
| The Infinite Atonement
“He measures the abundant life by the capacity “to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and triumph with humility.”
| To the Rescue: The Biography of Thomas S. Monson
“You can determine the kind of life you will have in your thirties or forties by what you do in your teens.”
| Ensign, Dec. 1995, 66
“When it comes to living the gospel, we should not be like the boy who dipped his toe in the water and then claimed he went swimming. As sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we are capable of so much more. For that, good intentions are not enough. We must do. Even more important, we must become what Heavenly Father wants us to be.”
| "Of Regrets and Resolutions," April 2012
God doesn’t care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and, with His help, where you are willing to go.
“May I invite you to rise to the great potential within you. But don’t reach beyond your capacity. Don’t set goals beyond your capacity to achieve. Don’t feel guilty or dwell on thoughts of failure. Don’t compare yourself with others. Do the best you can, and the Lord will provide the rest. Have faith and confidence in Him, and you will see miracles happen in your life and the lives of your loved ones.”
| September 2009 Liahona
“I recognize that, on occasion, some of our most fervent prayers may seem to go unanswered. We wonder, ‘Why?’ I know that feeling! I know the fears and tears of such moments. But I also know that our prayers are never ignored. Our faith is never unappreciated. I know that an all-wise Heavenly Father’s perspective is much broader than is ours. While we know of our mortal problems and pain, He knows of our immortal progress and potential. If we pray to know His will and submit ourselves to it with patience and courage, heavenly healing can take place in His own way and time.”
| Jesus Christ—the Master Healer, Ensign, Nov. 2005, 86
“The Holy Ghost can bring you power to perform beyond your natural abilities. He can provide you with the help of unseen powers in all that you do – the power to speak with convincing authority, to receive promptings that enable you to say things you had not planned, and to receive impressions, which if heeded, bring blessings to you and others. Mortals may have great abilities and potential, but however great these mortal powers may be, they are only a shadow of the powers that can be claimed through a linkage with the Holy Spirit.”
| “Courting the Spirit,” New Era, August 1990, p. 35
Now it is time for you to define your own goals and meet your own expectations. From now on, you decide! Instead of concentrating on what you are to do, now is the time to zero in on who you are to be…
| Disciples of Jesus Christ—Defenders of Marriage
| "Latter-day Saints Keep on Trying"
“He who lives only unto himself withers and dies, while he who forgets himself in the service of others grows and blossoms in this life and in eternity.”
