“One of the seven greatest heresies is that you must be perfect before you die.”
Self-mastery
LDS Quotes on Self-Mastery
“Let the father be the head of the family, the master of his own household; and let him treat them as an angel would treat them.”
| Journal of Discourses, 4:55
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.
Your Father in heaven knows your name and knows your circumstance. He hears your prayers. He knows your hopes and dreams, including your fears and frustrations. And He knows what you can become through faith in Him.
“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the master of his passions.”
“What we call self-mastery is the necessary price for the things upon which our hearts are set.”
“In the scriptures there is no such thing as righteous pride. It is always considered as a sin. We are not speaking of a wholesome view of self-worth, which is best established by a close relationship with God. But we are speaking of pride as the universal sin. . . . Essentially, pride is a “my will” rather than “thy will” approach to life. The opposite of pride is humbleness, meekness, submissiveness (see Alma 13:28), or teachableness. . . .Pride is characterized by “What do I want out of life?” rather than by “What would God have me do with my life?” It is self-will as opposed to God’s will. It is the fear of man over the fear of God.”
| in Conference Report, April 1986, pp. 5-6; or “Cleansing the Inner Vessel,” Ensign, May 1986, pp. 6-7
“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud:
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed. …
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
| "Invictus"
“The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.”
“The height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. There is no other limitation in either direction. And this law is the expression of eternal justice. He who cannot establish a dominion over himself will have no dominion over others, he who masters himself shall be king.”
| Improvement Era, June 1966, p. 525.