LDS Quotes on Work
We all occupy diversified stations in the world, and in the kingdom of God. Those who do right, and seek the glory of the Father in Heaven, whether their knowledge be little or much, or whether they can do little or much, if they do the very best they know how, they are perfect.”
| Ensign, July 1995, p. 34
Thus, faith in Christ leads to righteous action, which increases our spiritual capacity and power. Understanding that faith is a principle of action and of power inspires us to exercise our moral agency in compliance with gospel truth, invites the redeeming and strengthening powers of the Savior’s Atonement into our lives, and enlarges the power within us whereby we are agents unto ourselves (see D&C 58:28).
| “Ask in Faith,” Ensign, May 2008, p. 95
True faith is focused in and on the Lord Jesus Christ and always leads to righteous action. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “faith [is] the first principle in revealed religion, and the foundation of all righteousness” and that it is also “the principle of action in all intelligent beings” (Lectures on Faith [1985], 1). Action alone is not faith in the Savior, but acting in accordance with correct principles is a central component of faith. Thus, “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20).
| “Ask in Faith,” Ensign, May 2008
“In the end, the number of prayers we say may contribute to our happiness, but the number of prayers we answer may be of even greater importance.”
| Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes
“Education is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the world’s work, and the power to appreciate life.”
“Wanting love is good and wanting to excel is good. The trouble comes from trying to tie them together. Pursue love and pursue excellence – pursue them with abandon. But you will spoil the joy native to each if you spend your life wanting to be loved because you are loved. Love is for its own sake. It works only as a gift, never a reward. It can’t be earned or bartered or not given at all.”
| Letters to a Young Mormon
The Saints should not imagine that because they know the truth and the Work of God at the present time, that they will always know these things and therefore be able to stand. If they lose the Holy Spirit through their transgressions, from that moment their knowledge respecting the Work of God ceases to increase and becomes dead; a short time only elapses before such persons deny the faith. They may not deny that the Work was ever true, or that the Elders were ever the servants of God, but they will place a limit and say, ‘Up to such a time the work was true and the Elders were all right, but, after that, they went astray,’ – that very period being the time at which they themselves had committed some act or acts to forfeit the Spirit of God and kill the growth of that knowledge which they had had bestowed upon them. This has been the case in numerous instances in the past. . . . It is plain that it is they who have transgressed, and thereby driven the Spirit of the Lord from them; and at the very time they say the Church of God strayed, they themselves were guilty of transgression.
| “Knowledge, without the Aid of the Spirit of the Lord, Not Sufficient to Save,” Millennial Star, 8 Aug. 1863, pp. 505–6.
“For members of the Church, education is not merely a good idea—it’s a commandment.”
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
“Setting goals is a worthy endeavor. We know that our Heavenly Father has goals because He has told us that His work and glory is ‘to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man’ (Moses 1:39).
“Our personal goals can bring out the best in us. However, one of the things that derail our efforts in making and keeping resolutions is procrastination. We sometimes delay starting, waiting for the right moment to begin—the first day of a new year, the beginning of summer, when we’re called as bishop or Relief Society president, after the kids get into school, after we retire.”
| The Best Time to Plant a Tree
“At times all of us are called upon to stretch ourselves and do more than we think we can. I’m reminded of President Theodore Roosevelt’s quip, “I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.”
| “I Believe I Can, I Knew I Could,” Ensign, November 2002, p. 50
Man unquestionably has impressive powers … But after all our obedience and good works, we cannot be saved from the effects of our sins without the grace extended by the atonement of Jesus Christ … Man cannot earn his own salvation.
Now, may we refer specifically to vocational work or employment. The employment we choose should be honorable and challenging. Ideally, we need to seek that work to which we are suited by interest, by aptitude, and by training. A man’s work should do more than provide adequate income; it should provide him with a sense of self-worth and be a pleasure—something he looks forward to each day.
| Prepare for Honorable Employment
“Nothing will work unless you do.”
“Faith exists when absolute confidence in that which we cannot see combines with action that is in absolute conformity to the will of our Heavenly Father. Without all three—first, absolute confidence; second, action; and third, absolute conformity—without these three all we have is a counterfeit, a weak and watered-down faith.”
| Shall He Find Faith On The Earth?, October 2002 General Conference
“To reach a goal you have never before attained, you must do things you have never before done.”
| "Finding the Way Back," Ensign, May 1990, 74
The constant exercise of our faith by lofty thinking, prayer, devotion, and acts of righteousness is just as essential to spiritual health as physical exercise is to the health of the body. Like all priceless things, faith, if lost, is hard to regain. Eternal vigilance is the price of our faith. In order to retain our faith we must keep ourselves in tune with our Heavenly Father by living in accordance with the principles and ordinances of the gospel.
| Ensign, July 1973, p. 59
“The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. . . . For half a century I have been writing my thoughts in prose and verse; history. … I have tried all. But I feel I have not said a thousandth part of what is in me. When I go down to the grave, I can say, like so many others, “I have finished my day’s work,” but I can not say, “I have finished my life.” My day’s work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley; it is a thoroughfare. . . . My work is only beginning.”
| “Victor Hugo on Immortality,” Fifty Years, 324–25