George Q. Cannon Quotes - 52 quotes

George Quayle Cannon (1827-1901) was a significant leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and a prominent political figure in the 19th century. He was born on January 11, 1827, in Liverpool, England. Cannon immigrated to the United States with his family in 1842. Afte... show more

 An autocracy is a government of one man, and if he be a tyrant, it is the tyranny of one man; but the tyranny and the irresponsibility of a mob is one of the most grievous despotisms which can exist upon the face of the earth.

- George Q. Cannon

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 When two or three brethren, who aspire for office, try to divide the people, this is something to be deplored. I therefore have always advocated keeping down our salaries, that offices may not be very desirable, so that men shall not desire to get possession of office to use it, or feel that because they are elected once to office they ought to always have it. We should always be ready and willing to serve when called upon, and just as willing to decline when required, having at heart the good of the community.

- George Q. Cannon

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 I would deplore it as one of the greatest evils that could occur to us, that there should be a scramble for office among the Latter-day Saints.

- George Q. Cannon

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 We are battling all the time for human rights. We did so in the States before we were driven out; we have done so throughout these mountains, and are doing so to-day, contending for our rights.

- George Q. Cannon

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 Every law of God that we obey tends to our exaltation … The exaltation which God has attained to has been through obedience to these self-same laws that are now taught to us.

- George Q. Cannon

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 “It was no suspension of law on the part of our Savior, that caused Him to gather from the elements the bread and the fishes necessary to feed the multitude. It was no suspension of law that caused Him to open the eyes of the blind, or to cause the sick to be healed. It was no suspension of law that caused Him to ascend in the sight of His disciples after His resurrection when He visited them. I know that miracles are said to be a suspension of law; but instead of their being a suspension of law, they are due to a knowledge of a higher law, to a comprehension of greater laws, by the knowledge of which, what are called miracles are wrought. ”

- George Q. Cannon

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 Lucifer, the son of the morning, holding power and authority, blessed with knowledge and experience, fell into transgression and became an angel of darkness, opposed to the Almighty and to all those who keep his commandments; and it is but reasonable to suppose that, if he could fall by indulging in sin, man, also, by taking a similar course, must be visited by similar consequences.

- George Q. Cannon

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 The Latter-day Saints are in many respects like other people who are not Latter-day Saints. We are apt to entertain views which are not very correct, and which may be the result of our traditions and preconceived ideas.

- George Q. Cannon

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 Do not, brethren, put your trust in man though he be a Bishop, an Apostle or a President; if you do, they will fail you at some time or place; they will do wrong or seem to, and your support be gone; but if we lean on God, He never will fail us. When men and women depend on God alone and trust in Him alone, their faith will not be shaken if the highest in the Church should step aside. … Perhaps it is His own design that faults and weaknesses should appear in high places in order that His Saints may learn to trust in Him and not in any man or woman.

- George Q. Cannon

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 There is no suspension of law on the part of our Father when He interposes in behalf of His children.

- George Q. Cannon

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 There was a law revealed to us—the law of consecration—through obedience to which every man expected to hold all that he possessed subject to the dictation of the servants of God ... Holding themselves and all the wealth that God has so bountifully bestowed upon them, subject to the counsel that God has placed in His Church.

- George Q. Cannon

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 The Scriptures inform us that God created this earth as a habitation for man, and He placed man on it that he might have joy, a joy that is to be eternal. To accomplish these purposes, the preparatory one of peopling the earth, and the ultimate one of man's eternal happiness, He, the Creator, established marriage, and commanded those He first placed here on earth to be fruitful and multiply. This institution He regulated by strict laws given through His servants to His people in their various dispensations; and His son, our Savior, emphasized these commandments by most unequivocal teachings with regard to the sacredness of the marriage covenant, and of the sinfulness of divorce for other than the most grave departures from the spirit and intent of that covenant. In this is wisdom, for the experience of the world, in all its ages, proves that where lax ideas exist with regard to marriages and divorce, more especially where those ideas find expression in lax legislation, there we discover peoples and nations whose code of morals is inferior, and where sexual irregularities and sins increase, until that righteousness, which has been so truthfully said 'exalteth a nation' (Proverbs 14:34), ceases to have an existence in their midst. To a people who believe as we do, that true marriage was divinely instituted for the multiplication of mankind, and is not a union for time alone, but reaches into the eternities, the disruption of families by divorce is an evil of no ordinary character, not only bearing a harvest of sorrow and suffering in this life, but also having a far reaching influence into the world beyond the grave, and possibly involving others in the ruin who had no voice in the separation or power to avert its occurrence. For this reason the Latter-day Saints of all people should be most loath to sunder sacred ties once formed, and most determinedly opposed to the severance of unions made in holy places in God's appointed way, for light and trivial causes. (Oct. 6, 1886, MS 48:716).

- George Q. Cannon

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 “If any of us are imperfect, it is our duty to pray for the gift that will make us perfect. … No man ought to say, ‘Oh, I cannot help this; it is my nature.’ He is not justified in it, for the reason that God has promised to give strength to correct these things, and to give gifts that will eradicate them. If a man lacks wisdom, it is his duty to ask God for wisdom. The same with everything else. That is the design of God concerning His Church. He wants His Saints to be perfected in the truth. For this purpose He gives these gifts, and bestows them upon those who seek after them, in order that they may be a perfect people upon the face of the earth.”

- George Q. Cannon

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 “When we came to these valleys, we thought we had left the world behind us. We thought that because these mighty mountains, which reared themselves on every hand as an impassable barrier between us and the rest of the world, Babylon was left behind. We thought we could live comparatively pure lives, and that we would be comparatively free from the associations of the world. But such ideas have been dispelled - very rudely dispelled - by that which has occurred. Babylon followed us. We find that these mountains are not sufficient to divide us from the rest of the world; that we must share with the rest of mankind the evils and the blessings that pertain to this mortal condition of existence. We have these circumstances to contend with. We are mixed with the wicked. The tares and the wheat grow together and will grow until the harvest. This seems to be designed in the providence of our Father.”

- George Q. Cannon

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 The gift of discerning of spirits, also, is one that is of great importance to the Elders who are laboring in the ministry. We have known Elders become so filled with zeal and so desirous to do good, or what they supposed to be good, that they exposed themselves to the influence of the adversary. They would be filled with a species of what has been called "wildfire," and, carried away by zeal, they would go too far; they would say and do imprudent things and yet, being prompted by the purest and best motives, would feel entirely justified in their course. In the history of the Church there have been many illustrations of this. Elders can work themselves up beyond that which is proper and wise and be led to say and do many imprudent things and overstep the line of propriety. Now, the gift of discerning of spirits is necessary to keep these kind of feelings in check.

- George Q. Cannon

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 It is a part of the plan of salvation, I say, connected with man’s existence upon the earth that God should thus withdraw Himself, as it were, from man and that a veil should be drawn between Himself and man and that if knowledge of Him be obtained, it should be obtained by the exercise of great faith and continued labor on the part of His children.

- George Q. Cannon

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 The plan of salvation devised by our Father and God is intended to save every human being that will be saved, to reach them all unless, during this probation, they commit what is termed the unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost, and become sons of perdition, in which event salvation ceases (so far as they are concerned) to operate; they put themselves outside of the pale of salvation.

- George Q. Cannon

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 “The Lord Jesus was undoubtedly selected for the great mission of redeeming the world, because of His great qualities and His peculiar fitness as one of the Godhead. It is written of Him: ‘Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.’”

- George Q. Cannon

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 “It has frequently been remarked by those who scoff at it [the Bible] that it is like a fiddle, every kind of a tune can be played upon it. It requires something more than the Bible to guide man to eternal life. It requires divine inspiration, it requires the Holy Ghost, it requires the Priesthood, as it existed in ancient days, to be restored.”

- George Q. Cannon

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 It was no suspension of law on the part of our Savior, that caused Him to gather from the elements the bread and the fishes necessary to feed the multitude. It was no suspension of law that caused Him to open the eyes of the blind, or to cause the sick to be healed. It was no suspension of law that caused Him to ascend in the sight of His disciples after His resurrection when He visited them. I know that miracles are said to be a suspension of law; but instead of their being a suspension of law, they are due to a knowledge of a higher law, to a comprehension of greater laws, by the knowledge of which, what are called miracles are wrought.

- George Q. Cannon

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 The leaders of this Church are the most practical men in it...Our theory is that a man who cannot sustain himself and also teach others how to sustain themselves is unfit for a leading position...

- George Q. Cannon

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 Our only preservation is in living near to God, day by day, and serving him in faithfulness, and having the light of revelation and truth in our hearts continually, so that, when Satan approaches, we will see him and understand the snare that he has laid for us. Can we do this without the light of the Spirit? No … but when the light of the Spirit of God illuminates our minds and we are enlightened by it, we plainly see the results; and if we do not see them at the time, the Lord soon reveals them to us, and shows us that if we continue to take that course we will grieve his Spirit and fall victims to the adversary.”

- George Q. Cannon

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 “It has been frequently remarked by those who scoff at [the Bible] that it is like a fiddle, every kind of a tune can be played upon it. It requires something more than the Bible to guide man to eternal life. It requires divine inspiration, it requires the Holy Ghost, it requires the Priesthood, as it existed in ancient days, to be restored.”

- George Q. Cannon

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 “Liberty cannot be permitted to degenerate into license, but the utmost liberty can be enjoyed so long as it does not overstep that boundary. … All sects and all people should have this liberty, that is, liberty of conscience, liberty of speech and liberty of the press, as long as it does not degenerate into license, and interfere with the rights of others.”

- George Q. Cannon

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 There are many things that the leading men of this Church can see and understand that they cannot impart to the people nor ask the people to do. Why? Because they know that the people would not come up to the requirement and that therefore they would be disobedient. Better to give them line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little than to give them something that they could not receive and that they would rebel against. That is the manner in which the Lord deals with His children, and it is the manner in which wise men inspired of the Lord deal with their fellow men.

- George Q. Cannon

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 There are many things that the leading men of this Church can see and understand that they cannot impart to the people nor ask the people to do. Why? Because they know that the people would not come up to the requirement and that therefore they would be disobedient. Better to give them line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little than to give them something that they could not receive and that they would rebel against. That is the manner in which the Lord deals with His children, and it is the manner in which wise men inspired of the Lord deal with their fellow men.

- George Q. Cannon

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 “The Saints should always remember that God sees not as man sees; that he does not willingly afflict his children, and that if he requires them to endure present privation and trial, it is that they may escape greater tribulations which would otherwise inevitably overtake them. If He deprives them of any present blessing, it is that he may bestow upon them greater and more glorious ones by-and-by."

- George Q. Cannon

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 “Family government is the foundation of all government.”

- George Q. Cannon

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 In our pre-existent state, in our spiritual existence, I do not know how extensive our knowledge of good and evil was. That is not fully revealed. But this I do know that when we come to earth and become clothed with mortality, we do arrive at a knowledge of good and evil, and that knowledge prepares us for that future existence which we will have in the eternal worlds; it will enable us to enter upon a career that is never ending, that will continue onward and upward throughout all the ages of eternity. It is for this purpose that we are here. God has given unto us this probation for the express purpose of obtaining a knowledge of good and evil—of understanding evil and being able to overcome the evil—and by overcoming it receive the exaltation and glory that He has in store for us.

- George Q. Cannon

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 “No matter how serious the trial, how deep the distress, how great the affliction, [God] will never desert us. He never has, and He never will. He cannot do it. It is not His character [to do so]. … He will [always] stand by us. We may pass through the fiery furnace; we may pass through deep waters; but we shall not be consumed nor overwhelmed. We shall emerge from all these trials and difficulties the better and purer for them.”9

- George Q. Cannon

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 We are the children of God, and as His children there is no attribute we ascribe to Him that we do not possess, though they may be dormant or in embryo. The mission of the Gospel is to develop these powers and make us like our Heavenly Parent.

- George Q. Cannon

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 Family government is the foundation of all government.

- George Q. Cannon

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 “But the time will come when there will be a separation, a final separation, of the righteous from the wicked, and that separation will be brought about by the exercise of the Priesthood which God has bestowed. That Priesthood will draw up from the earth the pure, the holy, the worthy. It will draw them up to the society of God. Everything that is not pure will be left behind.”

- George Q. Cannon

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 “The prophecies concerning Zion which are on record are full of promises concerning the future growth of this people, concerning the glory that shall rest upon Zion. But these predictions and promises are all conditional. They will be fulfilled if we place ourselves in a position to merit their fulfillment, or to bring them about. If Zion fails to come up to the requirements which God has made of us, then the fulfillment of these glorious promises will undoubtedly be deferred.”

- George Q. Cannon

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 Remember this, Latter-day Saints; remember it and treasure it up in your hearts that you have salvation within your own keeping. If you are damned, you damn yourselves; you will be the instrument of your own damnation. It will not be because God will damn you; it will not be because Satan has such power that he can take away every blessing from you; it will not be because of anything of that kind. How will it come about? It will come to every soul by wrongdoing on the part of that soul. He or she alone can bring condemnation on himself or herself. There is no other power can do it. Hence, if we are damned we shall have no one to blame but ourselves; we shall have no one to condemn but ourselves; it will be the result of our own agency, the exercise of that power which God gave to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

- George Q. Cannon

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 Now, if a man can only know whence he came, why he is here, and that which awaits him after this life, it seems to me that he has abundant causes of happiness within his grasp. Much of the unhappiness and uncertainty that prevail to-day in the minds of mankind arise from ignorance upon these points.

- George Q. Cannon

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 Some have called him “the” son of the morning, but here [D&C 76:26] it is “a” son of the morning—one among many, doubtless. This angel was a mighty personage, without doubt.

- George Q. Cannon

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 God by His foreknowledge understood perfectly that Adam, in the exercise of his agency, would fall. Therefore He prepared a Redeemer in the person of His Son Jesus Christ, who we are told was “a lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.”

- George Q. Cannon

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 True theology is as exact a science as chemistry, and cause and effect are as sure in one as the other. But the necessary conditions must be complied with in the practice of either, or the desired result will not follow. Faith, repentance and baptism, properly administered and received, are as sure to bring remission of sins as the combination of certain substances, in fixed proportions, to produce certain chemical changes; and the Holy Ghost is as sure to be imparted by the laying on of the hands of authorized servants of God, if the foregoing requirements precede it, as the production of electricity is to follow the manipulation of the correct process. So much in illustration of doctrine.

- George Q. Cannon

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 Literal offspring of God. God in His infinite mercy has revealed to us a great truth. It is a truth that, when understood by us, gives a new light to our existence and inspires us with the most exalted hopes. That truth is that God is our Father, and we are His children. What a tender relationship! What a feeling of nearness it creates within us! What? God my Father? Am I indeed His son? Am I indeed His daughter? Do I belong to the family of God? Is this literally true? The answer is, “Yes.” God has revealed it, that we are literally His children, His offspring, that we are just as much His children as our offspring are our children, that He begot us, and that we existed with Him in the family relationship as His children. What an immensity of vision is given to us in this truth! What a field for reflection! And how our hearts should be inspired with great hopes and anticipations to think that the Being under whose direction this earth was organized, who governs the planets and controls the universe, who causes the rotation of the seasons and makes this earth so beautiful and such a delightful place of habitation, is our Father and that we are His children, descended from Him! What illimitable hopes the knowledge of this inspires us with!

- George Q. Cannon

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 The people who have embraced this gospel have had to think for themselves. It is no light natter to become a 'Mormon'. It involves serious consequences.

- George Q. Cannon

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 Meaning of Eternal Punishment. Because God’s punishment is eternal punishment, it does not necessarily follow that the being who receives it is consigned to it eternally. For instance, a prison might stand for a hundred years. It might be a place of punishment. A person consigned to that prison might go in there and expiate his crime in the prison by suffering a certain punishment, and after the time pronounced as the punishment had expired he could emerge therefrom. Still the prison exists. So it is with God’s punishment. His punishment is eternal punishment, because He is eternal; but it does not follow, as the Lord has said with great plainness, that a person who is consigned thereto will endure it eternally. The Lord Jesus Christ has died for all men, and He will draw all men unto Him. But there are degrees of punishment affixed to sin; and in proportion to men's crimes they will be punished. But they will not be consigned to endless punishment-that is, to suffer it eternally.

- George Q. Cannon

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 Obedience is heaven’s first law. The Lord has shown in all His dealings with the children of men that He places a high value upon obedience. We frequently hear it stated that “order is heaven’s first law.” This is a quotation from the English Poet, Pope; but the statement is a mistake. Obedience must precede order, and order is the result of obedience. Careful reflection leaves no doubt that obedience is heaven’s first law … No principle pertaining to the Gospel is of greater importance than obedience, for without obedience no blessing can come upon the people.

- George Q. Cannon

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 The second coming of the Savior—If we take the revelations which the Lord has given unto us, it appears that nothing plainer can be set forth than the great truth that the coming of the Lord will precede the Millennium or the thousand years of rest.

- George Q. Cannon

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 This Life a Preparation—His reason for placing us here was to develop our divine natures. If we were not surrounded by darkness, we could not develop. We must taste the bitter in order to relish the sweet, that our spirits might be purified and that we might exercise our free agency. Good and evil must be presented before us. We are as free agents in our sphere as the angels are in theirs. We are free to do right or to do wrong and to choose the path we shall tread in … God will force no man to heaven, because we would be of no value if there. When we get to heaven it will be because we have developed within ourselves the qualities that make heaven. We must develop heaven within ourselves, so that there will be perfect harmony between us and our surroundings.

- George Q. Cannon

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 I was reminded very much, in hearing the statement of the brethren, of what the Prophet Joseph said when alive about the indolence, carelessness and indifference to work manifested by some men. He said there were three kinds of poor—the Lord’s poor, the devil’s poor, and the poor devils.

- George Q. Cannon

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 Must endure to the end—They are the ones who shall be saved—those who endure to the end, faithfully keeping the commandments of God, not those who run well for a season and then cease to run or endure and yield to temptation and sin. They cannot be saved; better for them if they had never heard the Gospel; better for them if they had never, I was going to say, been born. Indeed, I think I might say it correctly.

- George Q. Cannon

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 “I was reminded very much, in hearing the statement of the brethren, of what the Prophet Joseph said when alive about the indolence, carelessness and indifference to work manifested by some men. He said there were three kinds of poor—the Lord’s poor, the devil’s poor, and the poor devils.”

- George Q. Cannon

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 You may dally by the wayside; you may fool away your time; you may be idle, indifferent and careless; but you only lose thereby the progress that you ought to make.

- George Q. Cannon

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 “Because as Zion increases there will be new temptations and circumstances thrown around us that will be a trial to us.”

- George Q. Cannon

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 “It is in politics as in religion. There are a great many men who make a profession of politics, professing to understand, to act upon, and to stand upon certain political principles, which are embodied in their platforms, of which, however, they are really ignorant.”

- George Q. Cannon

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 Partaking unworthily may cause sickness. No individual, whether officer or member, can pursue a course of this kind and escape condemnation. Such was also Paul’s faith in ancient days; for he wrote to the Corinthian Branch of the Church that in consequences of their partaking of the Lord's Supper unworthily many were weak and sickly among them and many had slept. (1 Corinthians 11: 26-30.) The Lord Jesus himself attaches so much importance to the sacrament that He has commanded His servants not to knowingly suffer any one to partake of His flesh and blood unworthily when they shall minister it. They are required to forbid such, because they who eat His flesh and blood unworthily eat and drink damnation to their souls.

- George Q. Cannon

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