When you choose to follow Christ, you choose to be changed.
— Ezra Taft Benson
Go on daddy-daughter dates and father-and-sons' outings with your children. As a family, go on campouts and picnics, to ball games and recitals, to school programs, and so forth. Having Dad there makes all the difference.
Husbands, recognize your wife's intelligence and her ability to counsel with you as a real partner regarding family plans, family activities, and family budgeting. Don't be stingy with your time or with your means. Give her the opportunity to grow intellectually, emotionally, and socially as well as spiritually.
In a home where there is an able-bodied husband, he is expected to be the breadwinner.
Pride is ugly. It says, 'If you succeed, I am a failure.'
Some prideful people are not so concerned as to whether their wages meet their needs as they are that their wages are more than someone else's. Their reward is being a cut above the rest. This is the enmity of pride.
Our enmity toward God takes on many labels, such as rebellion, hard-heartedness, stiff-neckedness, unrepentant, puffed up, easily offended, and sign seekers. The proud wish God would agree with them. They aren't interested in changing their opinions to agree with God's.
I feel certain that if, in our homes, parents will read from the Book of Mormon prayerfully and regularly, both by themselves and with their children, the spirit of that great book will come to permeate our homes and all who dwell therein.
I rode horseback three miles each way to get to high school, and in bad weather it was a problem sometimes to make my eight o'clock class on time. Like others, I often missed school to help on the farm, especially in the fall, until after harvest, and in the spring, during planting season.
Young people, you need the wisdom of age, just as some of us older ones need your enthusiasm for life.
The great test of life is obedience to God.
The price of peace is righteousness.
Scouting teaches a boy to take care of himself and stand on his own two feet.
We must not lose hope. Hope is an anchor to the souls of men. Satan would have us cast away that anchor.
Too often the pressure for popularity, on children and teens, places an economic burden on the income of the father, so mother feels she must go to work to satisfy her children's needs. That decision can be most shortsighted.
Daily, constantly, we choose by our desires, our thoughts, and our actions whether we want to be blessed or cursed, happy or miserable.
The great commandment of life is to love the Lord.
Encourage good music and art and literature in your homes. Homes that have a spirit of refinement and beauty will bless the lives of your children forever.
Surely no child should fear his own father - especially a priesthood father. A father's duty is to make his home a place of happiness and joy.
What does it mean to love someone with all your heart? It means to love with all your emotional feelings and with all your devotion. Surely when you love your wife with all your heart, you cannot demean her, criticize her, find fault with her, or abuse her by words, sullen behavior, or actions.
The Lord clearly defined the roles of providing for and rearing a righteous posterity. In the beginning, Adam, not Eve, was instructed to earn the bread by the sweat of his brow.
The proud depend upon the world to tell them whether they have value or not. Their self-esteem is determined by where they are judged to be on the ladders of worldly success. They feel worthwhile as individuals if the numbers beneath them in achievement, talent, beauty, or intellect are large enough.
Would we not do well to have the pleasing of God as our motive rather than to try to elevate ourselves above our brother and outdo another?
Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We pit our will against God's.
Our parents deserve our honor and respect for giving us life itself. Beyond this they almost always made countless sacrifices as they cared for and nurtured us through our infancy and childhood, provided us with the necessities of life, and nursed us through physical illnesses and the emotional stresses of growing up.
The Book of Mormon is the 'keystone' of our religion, and the Doctrine and Covenants is the 'capstone,' with continuing latter day revelation. The Lord has placed His stamp of approval on both the keystone and the capstone.
One of the standards on which your happiness is based, now and in your future, is moral purity.
Fear of men's judgment manifests itself in competition for men's approval.
The condition of the physical body can affect the spirit.
The greatest events of history are those which affect the greatest number for the longest periods.
Wickedness never did, never does, never will bring us happiness.
With pride, there are many curses. With humility, there come many blessings.
When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives.
The fellowship of true friends who can hear you out, share your joys, help carry your burdens, and correctly counsel you is priceless.
Build traditions of family vacations and trips and outings. These memories will never be forgotten by your children.
Mothers play an important role as the heart of the home, but this in no way lessens the equally important role fathers should play, as head of the home, in nurturing, training, and loving their children.
Are you honest with the Lord in the payment of your tithes? Living this divine law will bring both spiritual and material blessings.
If we love God, do His will, and fear His judgment more than men's, we will have self-esteem.
Disobedience is essentially a prideful power struggle against someone in authority over us. It can be a parent, a priesthood leader, a teacher, or ultimately God. A proud person hates the fact that someone is above him. He thinks this lowers his position.
The proud make every man their adversary by pitting their intellects, opinions, works, wealth, talents, or any other worldly measuring device against others.
Most of us think of pride as self-centeredness, conceit, boastfulness, arrogance, or haughtiness. All of these are elements of the sin, but the heart, or core, is still missing. The central feature of pride is enmity - enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen.
The one man other than my father who made the most lasting impression was an uncle, Serge B. Benson. He taught me in three different classes - but above all, he taught me lessons in moral, physical, and intellectual courage that I have tried to apply in later life.
If a man does not control his temper, it is a sad admission that he is not in control of his thoughts.
Sin pulls a man down into despondency and despair.
Your most important friendships should be with your own brothers and sisters and with your father and mother. Love your family. Be loyal to them. Have a genuine concern for your brothers and sisters.
Opposition provides choices, and choices bring consequences - good or bad.
The Lord is pleased with every effort, even the tiny, daily ones in which we strive to be more like Him.
Praise your children more than you correct them. Praise them for even their smallest achievement.
One of the trials of life is that we do not usually receive immediately the full blessing for righteousness or the full cursing for wickedness.
Our desires, be they spiritual or temporal, should be rooted in a love of the Lord.
