Jeffrey R. Holland Quotes - 100 quotes

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Jeffrey R. Holland

Jeffrey R. Holland is an American educator and religious leader. He served as the ninth president of Brigham Young University (BYU) from 1980 to 1989. He is currently a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), a position he has held since 1994. Holland was born on December 3, 1940 in St. George, Utah. He pursued higher education at Dixie College, Brigham Young University (BYU), and Yale University, where he earned a PhD in American Studies. Before his call to the Quorum of the Twelve, he served as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy and held various educational leadership roles, including Church commissioner of education. Throughout his career, Holland has been recognized for his contributions to education and interfaith understanding. He has authored several books and is known for his eloquent and compassionate speaking style.

quote icon With the gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the strength of heaven to help us, we can improve, and the great thing about the gospel is we get credit for trying, even if we don’t always succeed...So keep loving. Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever..

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon If you are the one afflicted or a caregiver to such, try not to be overwhelmed with the size of your task. Don’t assume you can fix everything, but fix what you can. If those are only small victories, be grateful for them and be patient.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon The answer to such questions is “Yes, God can provide miracles instantaneously, but sooner or later we learn that the times and seasons of our mortal journey are His and His alone to direct.” He administers that calendar to every one of us individually. For every infirm man healed instantly as he waits to enter the Pool of Bethesda,3 someone else will spend 40 years in the desert waiting to enter the promised land.4 For every Nephi and Lehi divinely protected by an encircling flame of fire for their faith,5 we have an Abinadi burned at a stake of flaming fire for his.6 And we remember that the same Elijah who in an instant called down fire from heaven to bear witness against the priests of Baal7 is the same Elijah who endured a period when there was no rain for years and who, for a time, was fed only by the skimpy sustenance that could be carried in a raven’s claw.8 By my estimation, that can’t have been anything we would call a “happy meal.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon So if love is to be our watchword, as it must be, then by the word of Him who is love personified, we must forsake transgression and any hint of advocacy for it in others. Jesus clearly understood what many in our modern culture seem to forget: that there is a crucial difference between the commandment to forgive sin (which He had an infinite capacity to do) and the warning against condoning it (which He never ever did even once).

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon We sense the complexity of such matters when we hear professionals speak of neuroses and psychoses, of genetic predispositions and chromosome defects, of bipolarity, paranoia, and schizophrenia. However bewildering this all may be, these afflictions are some of the realities of mortal life, and there should be no more shame in acknowledging them than in acknowledging a battle with high blood pressure or the sudden appearance of a malignant tumor.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon In the days and years ahead, you may suffer some discouragement and disappointment. On occasion you may feel genuine despair, either for yourself or your children or the plight and conditions of others. You may even make a personal mistake or two — serious mistakes, perhaps, though I hope not — and you may worry that any chance to be happy and secure in life has eluded you forever. When such times come, I ask you to remember this: This is the church of the happy endings.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon In preventing illness whenever possible, watch for the stress indicators in yourself and in others you may be able to help. As with your automobile, be alert to rising temperatures, excessive speed, or a tank low on fuel.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon The Great Depression we now face has less to do with the external loss of our savings and more to do with the internal loss of our self-confidence, with real deficits of faith and hope and charity all around us. But the instruments we need to create a brighter day and grow an economy of genuine goodness in society are abundantly provided for in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We cannot afford—and this world cannot afford—our failure to put these gospel concepts and fortifying covenants to full use personally and publicly.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon “If we are an extension of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Elder Holland said, “taking a significant amount of sacred tithes and other precious human resources, all of which might well be expended in other worthy causes, surely our integrity demands that our lives be absolutely consistent with and characteristic of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ . . . in harmony with the Lord’s anointed, those whom He has designated to declare Church doctrine and to guide Brigham Young University as its trustees.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Plainly, just as with Elder Maxwell’s 2004 use of the musketry image and Elder Oaks’s 2017 reappropriation of it, the reference is not to military combat, let alone to hateful prejudice or violent bigotry, but to intellectual contestation and reasoned argument—which are, after all, at or near the very core of scholarship and higher education. And what they said was completely consistent with the exhortation of 1 Peter 3:15: “Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear”—or, in the more contemporary language of the English Standard Version, “with gentleness and respect.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon I was in the audience for those 2004 remarks, in which Elder Maxwell expressed his appreciation for scholars at BYU who defended the claims, scriptures, and teachings of the Restoration against attack. (As far as I recall, he didn’t refer in any way to homosexuality or homosexuals.) The illustration that he used clearly drew upon an account given in Nehemiah 4 (especially verses 16-18). In it, the Jews who have returned from the Babylonian captivity to rebuild Jerusalem and its temple are obliged, because of threats and attacks from their neighbors, to work with one hand while holding a sword in the other—a defensive measure, not an aggressive one, that plainly has nothing to do with homosexuality.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon faith means trusting God in good times and bad, even if that includes some suffering

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Because the Restoration reaffirmed the foundational truth that God does work in this world, we can hope, we should hope, even when facing the most insurmountable odds.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Surely the Dark Ages were appropriately named, and not one of us is anxious to be transported back even to those later years of, say, the Hundred Years’ War or the Black Plague.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon “Coveting, pouting, or tearing others down does not elevate your standing, nor does demeaning someone else improve your self-image. So be kind, and be grateful that God is kind. It is a happy way to live.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon I offer you my apostolic promise that [our prayers] are heard and they are answered, though perhaps not at the time or in the way we wanted.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon I remind us all that while reaching out to and helping bring back a lamb who has strayed, we also have a profound responsibility to the 99 who didn’t stray and to the wishes and will of the Shepherd. There is a sheepfold, and we are all supposed to be in it, to say nothing of the safety and blessings that come to us for being there.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon The personal value, the sacred splendor of every ONE of YOU, is the very reason there is a plan for salvation and exaltation. CONTRARY to the parlance of the day, this IS about YOU. NO, don’t turn and look at your neighbor. I AM TALKING TO YOU!”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Happiness comes first by what comes into your head a long time before it comes into your hand.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon In the days and years ahead, you may suffer some discouragement and disappointment. On occasion you may feel genuine despair, either for yourself or your children or the plight and conditions of others. You may even make a personal mistake or two — serious mistakes, perhaps, though I hope not — and you may worry that any chance to be happy and secure in life has eluded you forever. When such times come, I ask you to remember this: This is the church of the happy endings.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon So, I ask, “If so many of our 1820 hopes could begin to be fulfilled with a flash of divine light to a mere boy kneeling in a patch of trees in upstate New York, why should we not hope that righteous desires and Christlike yearnings can still be marvelously, miraculously answered by the God of all hope?” We all need to believe that what we desire in righteousness can someday, someway, somehow yet be ours.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon In the most difficult and discouraging days of World War II, Winston Churchill said to the people of England: "To every man there comes...that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a special thing unique to him and fitted to his talent. What a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for the work which would be his finest hour."

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Indeed, if we finally lose hope, we lose our last sustaining possession. It was over the very gate of hell that Dante wrote a warning to all those traveling through his Divina Commedia: “Abandon all hope,” he said, “ye who enter here.”16 Truly when hope is gone, what we have left is the flame of the inferno raging on every side.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon In this bicentennial year, when we look back to see all we have been given and rejoice in the realization of so many hopes fulfilled, I echo the sentiment of a beautiful young returned sister missionary who said to us in Johannesburg just a few months ago, “[We] did not come this far only to come this far.”18

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Do we see the sacrament as our Passover, remembrance of out safety and deliverance and redemption? With so much at stake, this ordinance commemorating our escape from the angel of darkness should be taken more seriously than it sometimes is. It should be a powerful, reverent, reflective moment. It should encourage spiritual feelings and impressions.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon What a thrilling time it is to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! When I think about recent developments in the Lord’s kingdom, it seems obvious that God is taking us on a soul-stirring journey with hills and vales and vistas so stunning we can scarcely imagine them until we climb a little higher and there they are before us… In the past year alone, we’ve bid farewell to a beloved prophet and lovingly sustained a new one. We’ve taken a new approach to Relief Society and Melchizedek Priesthood quorum meetings, with greater emphasis on counseling together to accomplish the Lord’s work. In that same spirit, we’ve seen the Lord bring high priests and elders together in one quorum and witnessed a seismic shift in the way priesthood holders and sisters minister to God’s children. If that’s not enough to take your breath away, consider the First Presidency’s recent announcement about new resources to support personal and family scripture study, with corresponding changes to Primary and Sunday School materials—to say nothing of ongoing advancements in the areas of missionary work, family history research, and temple work. And surely there is more to come.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon When we have conquered this—and we will—may we be equally committed to freeing the world from the virus of hunger, freeing neighborhoods and nations from the virus of poverty.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon In this regard, there is sometimes a chance for a misunderstanding, especially among young people who may think we are not supposed to judge anything, that we are never to make a value assessment of any kind. We have to help each other with that because the Savior makes it clear that in some situations we have to judge, we are under obligation to judge—as when He said, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6). That sounds like a judgment to me. The unacceptable alternative is to surrender to postmodern moral relativism, which, pushed far enough, declares that ultimately nothing is eternally true or especially sacred and, therefore, no one position on any given issue matters more than any other. And in the gospel of Jesus Christ that simply is not true.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon King Benjamin says we obtain a remission of our sins by pleading to God, who compassionately responds, but we retain a remission of our sins by compassionately responding to the poor who plead to us.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon There is a lesson in the Prophet Joseph Smith's account of the First Vision that virtually everyone in this audience has had occasion to experience, or one day soon will. It is the plain and very sobering truth that before great moments, certainly before great spiritual moments, there can come adversity, opposition, and darkness. Life has some of those moments for us, and occasionally they come just as we are approaching an important decision or a significant step in our life.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon I bear witness of God’s love and of the Restoration of His glorious gospel, which is, in one way or another, the answer to every issue we face in life. In

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon At the zenith of His mortal ministry, Jesus said, “Love one another, as I have loved you.” To make certain they understood exactly what kind of love that was, He said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” and “whosoever … shall break one of [the] least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be … the least in the kingdom of heaven.” Christlike love is the greatest need we have on this planet in part because righteousness was always supposed to accompany it. So if love is to be our watchword, as it must be, then by the word of Him who is love personified, we must forsake transgression and any hint of advocacy for it in others. Jesus clearly understood what many in our modern culture seem to forget: that there is a crucial difference between the commandment to forgive sin (which He had an infinite capacity to do) and the warning against condoning it (which He never ever did even once).

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon “Well, if this is the case,” you might say, “shouldn’t His love and mercy simply part our personal Red Seas and allow us to walk through our troubles on dry ground? Shouldn’t He send 21st-century seagulls winging in from somewhere to gobble up all of our pesky 21st-century crickets?” The answer to such questions is “Yes, God can provide miracles instantaneously, but sooner or later we learn that the times and seasons of our mortal journey are His and His alone to direct.” He administers that calendar to every one of us individually. For every infirm man healed instantly as he waits to enter the Pool of Bethesda,3 someone else will spend 40 years in the desert waiting to enter the promised land.4 For every Nephi and Lehi divinely protected by an encircling flame of fire for their faith,5 we have an Abinadi burned at a stake of flaming fire for his.6 And we remember that the same Elijah who in an instant called down fire from heaven to bear witness against the priests of Baal7 is the same Elijah who endured a period when there was no rain for years and who, for a time, was fed only by the skimpy sustenance that could be carried in a raven’s claw.8 By my estimation, that can’t have been anything we would call a “happy meal.” The point? The point is that faith means trusting God in good times and bad, even if that includes some suffering until we see His arm revealed in our behalf.9 That can be difficult in our modern world when many have come to believe that the highest good in life is to avoid all suffering, that no one should ever anguish over anything.10 But that belief will never lead us to “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Sadly enough, my young friends, it is a characteristic of our age that if people want any gods at all, they want them to be gods who do not demand much, comfortable gods, smooth gods who not only don’t rock the boat but don’t even row it, gods who pat us on the head, make us giggle, then tell us to run along and pick marigolds.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Elder Holland continued: “In doing so, Adam and Eve answered forever the plaintive question that is so often heard: ‘If there is a God, why is there so much suffering in the world?’ The answer to that is we now live in a fallen world filled with opposites, a world in which God is the most powerful but decidedly not the only spiritual influence. As part of the doctrine of opposition, Satan is also at work in the world, and we knew before we came here that he would bring grief and anguish with him. Nevertheless, we (through Adam and Eve) made the conscious choice to live in and endure this mortal sphere of opposition in all things, for only through such an experience was godly progress possible.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Are we really nurturing our youth and our new members in a way that will sustain them when the stresses of life appear? Or are we giving them a kind of theological Twinkie—spiritually empty calories? President John Taylor once called such teaching “fried froth,” the kind of thing you could eat all day and yet finish feeling totally unsatisfied.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Brothers and sisters, there are going to be times in our lives when someone else gets an unexpected blessing or receives some special recognition. May I plead with us not to be hurt—and certainly not to feel envious—when good fortune comes to another person? We are not diminished when someone else is added upon. We are not in a race against each other to see who is the wealthiest or the most talented or the most beautiful or even the most blessed. The race we are really in is the race against sin, and surely envy is one of the most universal of those.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon “I bear personal witness this day of a personal, living God, who knows our names, hears and answers prayers, and cherishes us eternally as children of His spirit. I testify that amidst the wondrously complex tasks inherent in the universe, He seeks our individual happiness and safety above all other godly concerns.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon “Like you, I have had to worry about finances on occasion, but I have never been poor, nor do I even know how the poor feel. Furthermore, I do not know all the reasons why the circumstances of birth, health, education, and economic opportunities vary so widely here in mortality, but when I see the want among so many, I do not know that “there but for the grace of God go I.” I also know that although I may not be my brother’s keeper, I am my brother’s brother, and “because I have been given much, I too must give.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon I invite us to remember that perhaps the most repeated line in all of scripture is "It came to pass." Painful days do pass. It might seem that they won't, but they do. No regret is forever. No disappointment is fatal or final. No mistake is beyond remedy.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon We are commanded to become “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24) with our spouse. So how could we become “one” if we’re being casual with many? Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles put it this way: “[The] symbolism of ‘one flesh’ cannot be preserved, if we hastily … share intimacy in a darkened corner of a darkened hour, then just as hastily … retreat to our separate worlds—not to eat or live or cry or laugh together, not to do the laundry and the dishes and the homework, not to manage a budget and pay the bills and tend the children and plan together for the future. No, we cannot do that until we are truly one—united, bound, linked, tied, welded, sealed, married.”2

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon So be kind regarding human frailty—your own as well as that of those who serve with you in a Church led by volunteer, mortal men and women. Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it. So should we. And when you see imperfection, remember that the limitation is not in the divinity of the work.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon “in this long eternal quest to be more like our Savior, may we try to be ‘perfect’ men and women in at least this one way now—by offending not in word, or more positively put, by speaking with a new tongue, the tongue of angels. Our words, like our deeds, should be filled with faith and hope and charity, the three great Christian imperatives so desperately needed in the world today. With such words, spoken under the influence of the Spirit, tears can be dried, hearts can be healed, lives can be elevated, hope can return, confidence can prevail.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon “There are going to be times in our lives when someone else gets an unexpected blessing or receives some special recognition. May I plead with us not to be hurt—and certainly not to feel envious—when good fortune comes to another person? We are not diminished when someone else is added upon. We are not in a race against each other to see who is the wealthiest or the most talented or the most beautiful or even the most blessed. The race we are really in is the race against sin, and surely envy is one of the most universal of those.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon "Sure it is tough--before you join the Church, while you are trying to join, and after you have joined. That is the way it has always been, Paul says, but don't draw back. Don't panic and retreat. Don't lose your confidence. Don't forget how you once felt. Don't trust the experience you had... "With any major decision there are cautions and considerations to make, but once there has been illumination, beware the temptation to retreat from a good thing. If it was right when you prayed about it and trusted it and lived for it, it is right now. Don't give up when the pressure mounts...Face your doubts. Master your fears. 'Cast not away therefore your confidence.' Stay the course and see the beauty of life unfold for you.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Obedience and submission to the end, including whatever suffering physically or spiritually that may entail, are the key to our blessings and our salvation. In the suffering as well as in the serving, we must be willing to be like our Savior.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Fatigue is the common enemy of us all--so slow down, rest up, replenish, and refill. Physicians promise us that if we do not take the time to be well, we most assuredly will take time, later on, to be ill.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon In a dating and courtship relationship, I would not have you spend five minutes with someone who belittles you, one who is constantly critical of you, one who is cruel at your expense and may even call it humor. Life is tough enough without the person who is supposed to love you leading the assault on your self-esteem, your sense of dignity, your confidence, and your joy. In this person's care, you deserve to feel physically safe and emotionally secure.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Brothers and sisters, this is a divine work in process, with the manifestations and blessings of it abounding in every direction, so please don’t hyperventilate if from time to time issues arise that need to be examined, understood, and resolved. They do and they will.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Sadly enough, my young friends, it is a characteristic of our age that if people want any gods at all, they want them to be gods who do not demand much, comfortable gods, smooth gods who not only don’t rock the boat but don’t even row it, gods who pat us on the head, make us giggle, then tell us to run along and pick marigolds. Talk about man creating God in his own image! Sometimes—and this seems the greatest irony of all—these folks invoke the name of Jesus as one who was this kind of “comfortable” God. Really? He who said not only should we not break commandments, but we should not even think about breaking them. And if we do think about breaking them, we have already broken them in our heart. Does that sound like “comfortable” doctrine, easy on the ear and popular down at the village love-in? … Christlike love is the greatest need we have on this planet in part because righteousness was always supposed to accompany it. So if love is to be our watchword, as it must be, then by the word of Him who is love personified, we must forsake transgression and any hint of advocacy for it in others. Jesus clearly understood what many in our modern culture seem to forget: that there is a crucial difference between the commandment to forgive sin (which He had an infinite capacity to do) and the warning against condoning it (which He never ever did even once).

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Such a doctrine would have recognized Deity as a caring Father in Heaven, rather than a harsh judge dispensing stern justice or as an absentee landlord who had once been engaged in earthly matters but was now preoccupied somewhere else in the universe.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon It is the plain and very sobering truth that before great moments, certainly before great spiritual moments, there can come adversity, opposition, and darkness. Life has some of those moments for us, and occasionally they come just as we are approaching an important decision or a significant step in our life.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon The point? The point is that faith means trusting God in good times and bad, even if that includes some suffering until we see His arm revealed in our behalf.9 That can be difficult in our modern world when many have come to believe that the highest good in life is to avoid all suffering, that no one should ever anguish over anything.10 But that belief will never lead us to “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”11

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon My beloved brothers and sisters, Christianity is comforting, but it is often not comfortable. The path to holiness and happiness here and hereafter is a long and sometimes rocky one. It takes time and tenacity to walk it. But, of course, the reward for doing so is monumental.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon COVID and cancer, doubt and dismay, financial trouble and family trials. When will these burdens be lifted? The answer is “by and by.”17 And whether that be a short period or a long one is not always ours to say, but by the grace of God, the blessings will come to those who hold fast to the gospel of Jesus Christ. That issue was settled in a very private garden and on a very public hill in Jerusalem long ago.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon So while we work and wait together for the answers to some of our prayers, I offer you my apostolic promise that they are heard and they are answered, though perhaps not at the time or in the way we wanted. But they are always answered at the time and in the way an omniscient and eternally compassionate parent should answer them. My beloved brothers and sisters, please understand that He who never sleeps nor slumbers2 cares for the happiness and ultimate exaltation of His children above all else that a divine being has to do. He is pure love, gloriously personified, and Merciful Father is His name.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon His glorious gospel, which is, in one way or another, the answer to every issue we face in life.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Happiness is almost always a by-product of some other endeavor. One of my favorite writers from my university days said, "Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder."3 This is one of those great gospel ironies that often don't seem to make sense, like "the last shall be first" and "lose your life to find it." The gospel is filled with such ironies and indirections, and I think the pursuit of happiness is one of them.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon My young brothers and sisters, this Church can never “dumb down” its doctrine in response to social goodwill or political expediency or any other reason. It is only the high ground of revealed truth that gives us any footing on which to lift another who may feel troubled or forsaken. Our compassion and our love—fundamental characteristics and requirements of our Christianity—must never be interpreted as compromising the commandments.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon As the marvelous George MacDonald once said, in such situations “we are not bound to say all we [believe], but we are bound not even to look [like] what we do not [believe].

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon In this regard, there is sometimes a chance for a misunderstanding, especially among young people who may think we are not supposed to judge anything, that we are never to make a value assessment of any kind. We have to help each other with that because the Savior makes it clear that in some situations we have to judge, we are under obligation to judge—as when He said, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6). That sounds like a judgment to me. The unacceptable alternative is to surrender to postmodern moral relativism, which, pushed far enough, declares that ultimately nothing is eternally true or especially sacred and, therefore, no one position on any given issue matters more than any other. And in the gospel of Jesus Christ that simply is not true.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon How long do we wait for relief from hardships that come upon us? What about enduring personal trials while we wait and wait, and help seems so slow in coming? Why the delay when burdens seem more than we can bear?

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Too often we run from the very things that will save us and soothe us. Too often we see gospel commitments as something to be feared and then forsaken. Elder James E. Talmage (1862–1933) said: “Into every adult human life come experiences like unto the battling of the storm-tossed voyagers with contrary winds and threatening seas; ofttimes the night of struggle and danger is far advanced before succor appears; and then, too frequently the saving aid is mistaken for a greater terror. [But,] as came unto [these disciples] in the midst of the turbulent waters, so comes to all who toil in faith, the voice of the Deliverer—‘It is I; be not afraid.’”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon But, he also said, “we have to be careful that love and empathy do not get interpreted as condoning and advocacy, or that orthodoxy and loyalty to principle not be interpreted as unkindness or disloyalty to people. As near as I can tell, Christ never once withheld His love from anyone, but He also never once said to anyone, “Because I love you, you are exempt from keeping my commandments.” We are tasked with trying to strike that same sensitive, demanding balance in our lives.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon So while we work and wait together for the answers to some of our prayers, I offer you my apostolic promise that they are heard and they are answered, though perhaps not at the time or in the way we wanted. But they are always answered at the time and in the way an omniscient and eternally compassionate parent should answer them. My beloved brothers and sisters, please understand that He who never sleeps nor slumbers2 cares for the happiness and ultimate exaltation of His children above all else that a divine being has to do. He is pure love, gloriously personified, and Merciful Father is His name.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon For caregivers, in your devoted effort to assist with another’s health, do not destroy your own. For caregivers, in your devoted effort to assist with another’s health, do not destroy your own. In all these things be wise. Do not run faster than you have strength.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon "The first great commandment of all eternity is to love God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength—that’s the first great commandment. But the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of His heart, might, mind, and strength."

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon but a philosopher once said, tell me sufficiently why a thing should be done, and I will move heaven and earth to do it

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon At the zenith of His mortal ministry, Jesus said, "Love one another, as I have loved you." To make certain they understood exactly what kind of love that was, He said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments" and “whosoever ... shall break one of [the] least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be ... the least in the kingdom of heaven."

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Christlike love is the greatest need we have on this planet in part because righteousness was always supposed to accompany it. So if love is to be our watchword, as it must be, then by the word of Him who is love personified, we must forsake transgression and any hint of advocacy for it in others.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Christianity is comforting, but it is often not comfortable.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon With apologies to Elder Neal A. Maxwell for daring to modify and enlarge something he once said, I too suggest that “one’s life … cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free.” It simply will not work “to glide naively through life,” saying as we sip another glass of lemonade, “Lord, give me all thy choicest virtues, but be certain not to give me grief, nor sorrow, nor pain, nor opposition. Please do not let anyone dislike me or betray me, and above all, do not ever let me feel forsaken by Thee or those I love. In fact, Lord, be careful to keep me from all the experiences that made Thee divine. And then, when the rough sledding by everyone else is over, please let me come and dwell with Thee, where I can boast about how similar our strengths and our characters are as I float along on my cloud of comfortable Christianity.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon "We must constantly remind ourselves that He is God and we are not."

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon I think some of us, however, must still have in us that clichéd remnant of Puritan heritage that says it is somehow wrong to be comforted or helped, that we are supposed to be miserable about something all of the time. I submit that to “be of good cheer” (John 16:33) in the quest for “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13) may be the commandment that is, even in the hearts of otherwise faithful Latter-day Saints, almost universally disobeyed; and yet surely nothing could be more grievous to the Lord’s merciful heart.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon In that same spirit, I am convinced that none of us can appreciate how deeply it wounds the loving heart of God the Father or His Son, the Savior of the world, when They find that people do not feel confident in Their care or secure in Their hands or trust in Their commandments. My friends, for that reason alone, we have a duty to be cheerful!

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Broken minds can be healed just the way broken bones and broken hearts are healed. While God is at work making those repairs, the rest of us can help by being merciful, nonjudgmental, and kind.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon There is a lesson in the Prophet Joseph Smith's account of the First Vision that virtually everyone in this audience has had occasion to experience, or one day soon will. It is the plain and very sobering truth that before great moments, certainly before great spiritual moments, there can come adversity, opposition, and darkness. Life has some of those moments for us, and occasionally they come just as we are approaching an important decision or a significant step in our life.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon However, he also urged BYU employees to teach, to advocate, and, sometimes, to defend those doctrines and standards. He cited a 2004 campus speech in which the late Elder Neal A. Maxwell had said that, in a way, Latter-day Saint scholars at BYU “are a little bit like the builders of the temple in Nauvoo, who worked with a trowel in one hand and a musket in the other. Today scholars building the temple of learning must also pause on occasion to defend the kingdom. I personally think this is one of the reasons the Lord established and maintains this university. The dual role of builder and defender is unique and ongoing. I am grateful we have scholars today who can handle, as it were, both trowels and muskets.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon The Kingdom of God is, always has been, and must always be at odds with the world. And BYU, an integral part of the developing Kingdom, must also be, as Elder Holland said, “unique” and “special.” That—not homosexuality—was what his speech was about. It wasn’t angry or hateful. It has been grievously misrepresented.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Christ is the power behind all repentance...Alma had been touched by the teaching of his father, but it is particularly important that the prophecy he remembered was one regarding 'the coming of on Jesus Christ, a Son of God to atone for the sins of the world'. (Alma 36:17). That is the name and that is the message that every person must hear. ...Whatever other prayers we offer, whatever other needs we have, all somehow depends on that plea: 'O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me.' He is prepared to provide that mercy. He paid with his very life in order to give it.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon In this process of evaluation, we are not called on to condemn others, but we are called upon to make decisions every day that reflect judgment—we hope good judgment.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon The personal value, the sacred splendor of every ONE of YOU, is the very reason there is a plan for salvation and exaltation. CONTRARY to the parlance of the day, this IS about YOU. NO, don’t turn and look at your neighbor. I AM TALKING TO YOU!”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon The personal value, the sacred splendor of every one of you, is the very reason there is a plan of salvation and exaltation. Contrary to the parlance of the day, this is about you. No, don’t turn and look at your neighbor. I am talking to you!

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon I had a comforting realization that my first thought—that God is just—wasn’t as painful as it sounded. However frightening it may be that all of us have sinned, however frightening it may be to contemplate a just God, it is infinitely more frightening to me to contemplate an unjust God. ...A basic principle of Latter-day Saint doctrine is that we have to know that God is just in order to go forward. One of God’s attributes is justice, and we would not have the faith—because of fear—to live righteously or to love better or to repent more readily if somehow we didn’t think that justice would count for us, if somehow we thought God would change His mind and decide there was another set of rules.1 Because we know that God is just and would cease to be God if He weren’t so, we have the faith to go forward, knowing that we will not be the victims of whimsy or caprice or a bad day or a bad joke. That assurance is very encouraging.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon When you face “depletion depression,” make the requisite adjustments. Fatigue is the common enemy of us all—so slow down, rest up, replenish, and refill. Physicians promise us that if we do not take time to be well, we most assuredly will take time later on to be ill.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon With apologies to Elder Neal A. Maxwell for daring to modify and enlarge something he once said, I too suggest that 'one's life ' cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free.' It simply will not work 'to glide naively through life,' saying as we sip another glass of lemonade, 'Lord, give me all thy choicest virtues, but be certain not to give me grief, nor sorrow, nor pain, nor opposition. Please do not let anyone dislike me or betray me, and above all, do not ever let me feel forsaken by Thee or those I love. In fact, Lord, be careful to keep me from all the experiences that made Thee divine. And then, when the rough sledding by everyone else is over, please let me come and dwell with Thee, where I can boast about how similar our strengths and our characters are as I float along on my cloud of comfortable Christianity.'12 My beloved brothers and sisters, Christianity is comforting, but it is often not comfortable. The path to holiness and happiness here and hereafter is a long and sometimes rocky one. It takes time and tenacity to walk it. But, of course, the reward for doing so is monumental. This truth is taught clearly and persuasively in the 32nd chapter of Alma in the Book of Mormon. There this great high priest teaches that if the word of God is planted in our hearts as a mere seed, and if we care enough to water, weed, nourish, and encourage it, it will in the future bear fruit 'which is most precious, ' sweet above all that is sweet,' the consuming of which leads to a condition of no more thirst and no more hunger.13 Many lessons are taught in this remarkable chapter, but central to them all is the axiom that the seed has to be nourished and we must wait for it to mature; we '[look] forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof.'14 Our harvest, Alma says, comes 'by and by.'15 Little wonder that he concludes his remarkable instruction by repeating three times a call for diligence and patience in nurturing the word of God in our hearts, 'waiting,' as he says, with 'long-suffering ' for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you.'

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon “God expects you to have enough faith and determination and enough trust in Him to keep moving, keep living, keep rejoicing. In fact, He expects you not simply to face the future (that sounds pretty grim and stoic); He expects you to embrace and shape the future--to love it and rejoice in it and delight in your opportunities. God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has. But He can’t if you don’t pray, and He can’t if you don’t dream. In short, He can’t if you don’t believe.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon “one’s life … cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon "I testify that angels are still sent to help us."

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Surely the thing God enjoys most about being God is the thrill of being merciful, especially to those who don’t expect it and often feel they don’t deserve it.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon If somebody makes a mistake, let it be a mistake. It doesn't have to be a trait; it doesn't have to be a condemnation. Let a mistake be a mistake.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon ...you may worry that any chance to be happy and secure in life has eluded you forever. When such times come, I ask you to remember this: This is the Church of the happy endings. Troubles need never be permanent nor fatal. Darkness always yields to light. The sun always rises. Faith, hope, and charity will always triumph in the end. Furthermore, they will triumph along the way.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon “In this long eternal quest to be more like our Savior, may we try to be “perfect” men and women in at least this one way now ---by offending not in word, or more positively put, by speaking with a new tongue, the tongue of angels. Our words, like our deeds, should be filled with faith and hope and charity.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon “You can change anything you want to change and you can do it very fast. It is another Satanic falsehood to believe that it take years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes to say “I’ll change”—and mean it…. Do not misunderstand. Repentance is not easy or painless or convenient. It can be a bitter cup from hell. But only Satan would have you think that a necessary and required acknowledgement of sin is more distasteful than permanent residence in it. Only he would say, “You can’t change. You won’t change. Give up. Give in. Don’t repent. You are just the way you are.” That, my friends, is a lie born of desperation. Don’t fall for it.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Christianity is obviously not a statistical endeavor.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon We are always expected to help ourselves before we ask help from others.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon Of all the things in the world that are worth your whole soul and devotion, it should be your spouse and your children. Short of being in the very presence of God, literally, you will never be more proximate to divinity than you are in the presence of your spouse and children. They deserve godly loyalty. They deserve divine attention. Husbands, when your wife asks you to do better, she's not talking about perfection. She's not criticizing you. She's saying, "I need you. I need you to be here. I need you to listen. I need you to be nearby." Wives, when your husbands are troubled or worried, and they will be, because they would like to be perfect, too, what they need you to say is, "You are OK now. You are alright now. We will work on perfection later. I Love you like crazy right now, just the way you are.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon “In this regard, there is sometimes a chance for a misunderstanding, especially among young people who may think we are not supposed to judge anything, that we are never to make a value assessment of any kind. We have to help each other with that because the Savior makes it clear that in some situations we have to judge, we are under obligation to judge—as when He said, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6). That sounds like a judgment to me. The unacceptable alternative is to surrender to postmodern moral relativism, which, pushed far enough, declares that ultimately nothing is eternally true or especially sacred and, therefore, no one position on any given issue matters more than any other. And in the gospel of Jesus Christ that simply is not true. … In this process of evaluation, we are not called on to condemn others, but we are called upon to make decisions every day that reflect judgment—we hope good judgment.”

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon There will always be more blessings than burdens--even if some days it doesn’t seem so. ---Jeffrey R. Holland

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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quote icon C.S Lewis once said that if we could recognize who we were, we would realize that we were walking with possible gods and goddesses whom, if we could see them in all their eternal dignity and glory, we would be tempted to fall down and worship. Because this is true, we need to think more highly of ourselves and we need to think more highly of each other.

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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