Hand-in-hand with the freedom to choose is the need to make wise choices among the many options life offers (see Choices & Freedom). These decisions include choices in how we will use our energy, material resources, spiritual and intellectual focus, and, perhaps most importantly, our time.
In the Mormon view, life on Earth is all about opportunities (see Purpose of Life). We literally choose what it is that we will become. Such decisions are often about choosing among competing good activities, as well as choosing between right and wrong.
Where the Lord plants us, there we are to stand; when he requires us to exert ourselves for the support of these holy principles, that we are to do; that is all we need to trouble ourselves about; the rest our Heavenly Father will take care of.
—Lorenzo Snow (1814–1901)
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the House of the Lord than mingle with the top brass in the tents of the wicked.
—Hugh Nibley (1910–2005)
The god of the world is the gold and the silver. The world worships this god. It is all-powerful to them, though they might not be willing to acknowledge it. Now, it is designed, in the providence of God, that the Latter-day Saints should show whether they have so far advanced in the knowledge, in the wisdom, and in the power of God that they cannot be overcome by the god of the world. We must come to that point. We have also got to reach another standard, a higher plane: we have got to love God more than we love the world, more than we love gold or silver, and love our neighbor as ourselves.
—Lorenzo Snow (1814–1901)
Wealth is a jealous master who will not be served halfheartedly and will suffer no rival—not even God: “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon” (Matthew 6:24). In return for unquestioning obedience, wealth promises security, power, position, and honors—in fact, anything in this world. . . . The more important wealth is, the less important it is how one gets it.
—Hugh Nibley (1910–2005)
If we choose the right, success will be ours, and the achievement of it will have molded and formed and created us into the kind of person qualified to be accepted into the presence of God.
—Harold B. Lee (1899–1973)
Any task in life is easier if we approach it with the one-at-a-time attitude. . . . To cite a whimsical saying: “If you chase two rabbits, both of them will escape.” No one is adequate to do everything all at once. We have to select what is important, what is possible, and begin where we are, with what we have. And if we begin and if we keep going the weight, the worry, the doubt, the depression will begin to lift. . . . “The beginning,” said Plato, “is the most important part.”
—Richard L. Evans (1906–1971)
The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things.
—Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012)
You will come to know that what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove instead to be the greatest investment that you will ever make.
—Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008)
Greatness is not always a matter of the scale of one’s life, but of the quality of one’s life. True greatness is not always tied to the scope of our tasks, but to the quality of how we carry out our tasks whatever they are. In that attitude, let us give our time, ourselves, and our talents to the things that really matter.
—Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985)
If someone told you by digging long enough in a certain spot you would find a diamond of unmeasured wealth, do you think you would begrudge time or strength, or means spent to obtain that treasure? . . . If you will dig in the depths of your own hearts you will find, with the aid of the Spirit of the Lord, the pearl of great price, the testimony of the truth of this work.
—Zina D. H. Young (1821–1901)
When our minds really catch hold of the significance of Jesus’ atonement, the world’s hold on us loosens.
—Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004)
At the end of your lives you will not be judged by academic successes, the degrees or diplomas earned, the positions held, the material wealth acquired, or power and prestige, but rather on the basis of what you have become as persons and what you are in conduct and character.
—Howard W. Hunter (1907–1995)
I would not give the ashes of a rye straw for any religion that was not worth living for and that was not worth dying for; and I would not give much for the man that was not willing to sacrifice his all for the sake of his religion.
—Lorenzo Snow (1814–1901)