Neal A. Maxwell Quotes

Discouragement is not the absence of adequacy but the absence of courage.

If we are serious about our discipleship, Jesus will eventually request each of us to do those very things which are most difficult for us to do.

Sometimes the best people... have the worst experiences... because they are ready to learn

The cavity which suffering carves into our souls will one day also be the receptacle of joy.

Let the scriptures refresh you.

We cannot lead or draw others to Christ unless we stand closer to Him than they do.

In one degree or another we all struggle with selfishness. Since it is so common, why worry about selfishness anyway? Because selfishness is really self-destruction in slow motion.

For the faithful, our finest hours are sometimes during or just following our darkest hours.

Defectors often cause more difficulty than disinterested disbelievers.

In the economy of Heaven, God does not send thunder if a still, small voice is enough, or a prophet if a priest can do the job.

I am as I am, And so is a stone; Them that don't like me, Must leave me alone.

Anger should never be an overnight guest.

A friend of mine who passed through a most severe trial, when I discussed it with him, he said simply, if it’s fair, it isn’t a trial.

It is so easy to be confrontive without being informative; indignant without being intelligent; impulsive without being insightful.

Meekness, the subtraction of self, reduces the multiplication of words.

Daily hope is vital, since the ‘Winter Quarters’ of our lives are not immediately adjacent to our promised land either. An arduous trek still awaits, but hope spurs weary disciples on.

Sometimes we are so busy being the hammer or the anvil, that we forget who really needs the shaping.

Don't fear, just live right.

I testify that He is utterly incomparable in what He is, what He knows, what He has accomplished and what He has experienced. Yet, movingly, He calls us His Friends

God will facilitate, but He will not force.

Beware not to get caught up in the thick of thin things.

The great challenge is to refuse to let the bad things that happen to us do bad things to us. That is the crucial difference between adversity and tragedy.

In a very real sense, all we need to know is that God knows all.

Power is most safe with those who are not in love with it!

Pure religion is having the courage to do what is right and let the consequence follow.

If another person only had in his storehouse of deserved self-esteem what you had put there, what would he have to draw upon and to sustain him?

We are so busy constantly checking our own temperatures, we fail to notice the burning fevers of others.

How good you and I get at repenting will determine how good life is.

Each day I see all about me the fruits of commandment-keeping.

The laughter of the world is merely loneliness pathetically trying to reassure itself.

Within what is allotted to us, we can have spiritual contentment.

Crowds cannot make right what God has declared to be wrong.

Love is never wasted, even if it is not reciprocated.

God's anger is kindled not because we have harmed him but because we have harmed ourselves.

When our minds really catch hold of the significance of Jesus' atonement, the world's hold on us loosens.

Do not write a check with your tongue that your actions cannot cash.

Any assessment of where we stand in relationship to Him tells us that we do not stand at all. We kneel.

We may never become accustomed to untrue and unjust criticism of us but we ought not to be immobilized by it.

The gross size of our talent inventories is less important than the net use of our talents?

We are vulnerable if we can be taken by a wave of emotion, invaded by an invidious impulse, roughed up by resentment, or engulfed by a surge of selfishness.

The issue for us is trusting God enough to trust also His timing. If we can truly believe He has our welfare at heart, may we not let His plans unfold as He thinks best?

Trying to observe the slow shift from self-centeredness to empathy is like trying to watch grass grow.

Clearly, when we baptize, our eyes should gaze beyond the baptismal font to the holy temple. The great garner into which the sheaves should be gathered is the holy temple.

The dues of discipleship are high indeed, and how much we can take so often determines how much we can then give.

Patience stoutly resists pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing!

The mortal experience . . . is not like a college course which we can passively audit. Instead, we are taking life's course for credit and there are no summers off - not even semester breaks.

The Book of Mormon is to be feasted upon, not nibbled.

Though we have rightly applauded our ancestors for their spiritual achievements ... those of us who prevail today will have done no small thing.

Conscience warns us not to sink our cleats too deeply in mortal turf, which is so dangerously artificial.

A new calling can beckon us away from comfortable routine and from competencies already acquired.