http://speeches.byu.edu/index.php?act=viewitem&id=909
we were not sent here to fail (Maxwell)
http://speeches.byu.edu/index.php?act=viewitem&id=909
“Let us have the courage to defy the consensus, the courage to stand for principle. Courage, not compromise, brings the smile of God’s approval. Courage becomes a living and an attractive virtue when it is regarded not only as a willingness to die manfully, but also as a determination to live decently. A moral coward is one who is afraid to do what he thinks is right because others will disapprove or laugh. Remember that all men have their fears, but those who face their fears with dignity have courage as well.”
( “The Call for Courage,” Ensign, May 2004, 55–56.)
The work of devils and of darkness is never more certain to be defeated than when men and women, not finding it easy or pleasant but still determined to do the Father’s will, look out upon their lives from which it may seem every trace of God has vanished, and asking why they have been so forsaken, still bow their heads and obey.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Will of the Father in All Things” (BYU Devotional, January 17, 1989)
[Paraphrased from C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1961), p. 39]
Men’s and nations’ finest hours consist of those moments when extraordinary challenge is met by extraordinary response. Hence in those darkest hours, we must light our individual candles rather than vying with others to call attention to the enveloping darkness. Our indignation about injustice should lead to illumination, for if it does not, we are only adding to the despair–and the moment of gravest danger is when there is so little light that darkness seems normal.
Neal A. Maxwell, The Smallest Part, p. 75
I am surprised (I would be amused if the cost were not so great) that people think they can remove the foundations of our social structure–things like work, chastity, and family and then wonder why other things crumble. You can’t remove the foundation of a building while standing inside and not be hit with falling plaster…
You’re soon going to go out into a world full of marshmallow men. Like the act of putting a finger into a marshmallow, there is no core in these men, there is no center, and when one removes his finger, the marshmallow resumes its former shape. We are in a world of people who want to yield to everything–to every fad and to every fashion. It is incredibly important that we be committed to the core–committed to those things that matter, about which our Father in heaven has leveled with us through his Son, Jesus Christ, and his prophets.
I saw an interesting cartoon not too long ago that bears on this point of marshmallow men. It showed two multicolored desert lizards conversing. One said to the other, “Of course you’re going through an identity crisis. You’re a chameleon.”
Of course the world is going through an identity crisis. Of course it’s adrift: it’s got no anchor. It does not have core principles upon which to decide all other things. I am grateful that our beliefs are related to the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Neal A. Maxwell, BYU Fireside, September 1, 1974
http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6066&x=47&y=5