Ezra Taft Benson Quotes

The Lord is pleased with every effort, even the tiny, daily ones in which we strive to be more like Him.

With the Spirit and magnifying your call, you can do miracles for the Lord in the mission field. Without the Spirit, you will never succeed, regardless of your talent and ability.

Daily, constantly, we choose by our desires, our thoughts, and our actions whether we want to be blessed or cursed, happy or miserable.

Was it not through pride that the devil became the devil? Christ wanted to serve. The devil wanted to rule.

To lose yourself in righteous service to others can lift your sights and get your mind off personal problems, or at least put them in proper focus.

I am grateful my own eternal companion served a mission in Hawaii before we were married in the Salt Lake Temple, and I am pleased that I have had three granddaughters serve full-time missions.

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.

It is a truism that children need more of Mother than of money.

Some spiritually alert parents hold early-morning devotionals with their families in their homes. They have a hymn, prayer, and then read and discuss the Book of Mormon.

Attractive labels are usually attached to the most dangerous programs, often in the name of public welfare and personal security.

Young people, you need the wisdom of age, just as some of us older ones need your enthusiasm for life.

Modesty in dress and language and deportment is a true mark of refinement and a hallmark of a virtuous Latter-day Saint woman.

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 Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums.

Our desires, be they spiritual or temporal, should be rooted in a love of the Lord.

Enmity means ‘hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.’ It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us.

Young women, the family unit is forever, and you should do everything in your power to strengthen that unit.

Let your minds be filled with the goal of being like the Lord, and you will crowd out depressing thoughts as you anxiously seek to know Him and do His will.

The condition of the physical body can affect the spirit.

Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves.

Students at universities are sometimes so filled with the doctrines of the world they begin to question the doctrines of the gospel.

I challenge the homes of Israel to display on their walls great quotations and scenes from the Book of Mormon.

There will always be those little minds who, out of vanity or intellectual display, will attempt to destroy faith in the very foundations of life.

When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives.

The fact that a book or publication is popular does not necessarily make it of value.

Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the foundation upon which sincere and meaningful repentance must be built. If we truly seek to put away sin, we must first look to Him who is the Author of our salvation.

With pride, there are many curses. With humility, there come many blessings.

Satan knows that youth is the springtime of life when all things are new and young people are most vulnerable.

Many a family, in order to make a ‘proper showing,’ will commit itself for a larger and more expensive house than is needed, in an expensive neighborhood. Almost everyone would, it seems, like to keep up with the Joneses.

It is a fundamental truth that the responsibilities of motherhood cannot be successfully delegated. No, not to day-care centers, not to schools, not to nurseries, not to babysitters.

There are blessings in being close to the soil, in raising your own food even if it is only a garden in your yard and a fruit tree or two. Those families will be fortunate who, in the last days, have an adequate supply of food because of their foresight and ability to produce their own.

I reverence the Constitution of the United States as a sacred document. To me its words are akin to the revelations of God, for God has placed his stamp of approval on the Constitution of this land.

Essentially, pride is a ‘my will’ rather than ‘thy will’ approach to life.

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.

The undermining of the home and family is on the increase with the devil anxiously working to displace the father as the head of the home and create rebellion among the children.

Satan would have you believe that happiness comes only as you surrender to his enticements, but one only needs to look at the shattered lives of those who violate God’s laws to know why Satan is called the Father of Lies.

The Book of Mormon, the record of Joseph, verifies and clarifies the Bible. It removes stumbling blocks; it restores many plain and precious things.

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.’

The great commandment of life is to love the Lord.

Sin pulls a man down into despondency and despair.

We should put God ahead of everyone else in our lives.

It is mother’s influence during the crucial formative years that forms a child’s basic character. Home is the place where a child learns faith, feels love, and thereby learns from mother’s loving example to choose righteousness.

Can human hearts be changed? Why, of course! It happens every day in the great missionary work of the Church. It is one of the most widespread of Christ’s modern miracles. If it hasn’t happened to you – it should.

To love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is all-consuming and all-encompassing. It is no lukewarm endeavor.