Jen White > Jen's Quotes

“We must have the courage to be imperfect while striving for perfection.”
― Patricia T. Holland, A Quiet Heart

“If for a while the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived. (The Inconvenient Messiah, BYU Speeches, Feb 15, 1982)”
― Jeffrey R. Holland

“To you who think you are lost or without hope, or who think you have done too much that was too wrong for too long, to every one of you who worry that you are stranded somewhere on the wintry plains of life and have wrecked your handcart in the process, we call out "Jehovah's unrelenting refrain, "My hand is stretched out still" (Isaiah 5:25: 9:17,21). "...His mercy endureth forever, and His hand is stretched out still. His is the pure love of Christ, the charity that never faileth, that compassion which endures even when all other strength disappears".”
― Jeffery R. Holland

“With time and perspective we recognize that such problems in life do come for a purpose, if only to allow the one who faces such despair to be convinced that he really does need divine strength beyond himself, that she really does need the offer of heaven’s hand. Those who feel no need for mercy usually never seek it and almost never bestow it. Those who have never had a heartache or a weakness or felt lonely or forsaken never have had to cry unto heaven for relief of such personal pain. Surely it is better to find the goodness of God and the grace of Christ, even at the price of despair, than to risk living our lives in a moral or material complacency that has never felt any need for faith or forgiveness, any need for redemption or relief.”
― Jeffery R. Holland

“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.”
― Jeffrey R. Holland

“We have to pray as the ancients prayed. We are women now, not children, and are expected to pray with maturity. The words most often used to describe urgent, prayerful labor are wrestle, plead, cry, and hunger...In some sense, prayer may be the hardest work we will ever be engaged in, and perhaps it should be.”
― Patricia T. Holland, A Quiet Heart

“...meekness also means strength--strength to be yourself, your best self, and to resist those people, principles, and places that work to abuse you physically, emotionally, and spiritually.”
― Patricia T. Holland, A Quiet Heart

“...we will have peace to the degree that we are less envious of others' situations, less threatened by others' accomplishments, less concerned with others' progress and more concerned with God's divine will for us.”
― Patricia T. Holland, A Quiet Heart

“God does not begin by asking us about our ability, but only about our availability, and if we then prove our dependability, he will increase our capability.”
― Neal A. Maxwell

“Faith in God includes Faith in God's timing.”
― Neal A. Maxwell

“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”
― Neal A. Maxwell

“I am a product [...of] endless books. My father bought all the books he read and never got rid of any of them. There were books in the study, books in the drawing room, books in the cloakroom, books (two deep) in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder in the cistern attic, books of all kinds reflecting every transient stage of my parents' interest, books readable and unreadable, books suitable for a child and books most emphatically not. Nothing was forbidden me. In the seemingly endless rainy afternoons I took volume after volume from the shelves. I had always the same certainty of finding a book that was new to me as a man who walks into a field has of finding a new blade of grass.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. ... We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible Gods and Goddesses. To remember that the dullest, and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”
― C.S. Lewis, Inspirational Writings of C.S. Lewis: Surprised by Joy, Reflections on the Psalms, the Four Loves, the Business of Heaven

“Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along―the same person that I am today.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless. No one's life is nothing. Even the most evil of men and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous act that redeems them, at least a little, from their sins.”
― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

“Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear.”
― Orson Scott Card, Children of the Mind

“When you really know somebody you can’t hate them. Or maybe it’s just that you can’t really know them until you stop hating them.”
― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

“The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them.”
― Orson Scott Card, Xenocide

“If you give orders and explain nothing, you might get obedience, but you'll get no creativity. If you tell them your purpose, then when your original plan is shown to be faulty, they'll find another way to achieve your goal. Explaining to your men doesn't weaken their respect for you, it proves your respect for them.”
― Orson Scott Card, Shadow of the Giant

“But when it comes to human beings, the only type of cause that matters is final cause, the purpose. What a person had in mind. Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart.”
― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

“Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?”
― Colin Powell

“Government should be a place where people can come together, and no one gets left behind. No one…gets left behind. An instrument of good.”
― Aaron Sorkin

“Josh: So, Toby, it’s election night. What do you say about a country that goes out of its way to protect even those citizens that try to destroy it?
Toby: God bless America.”
― Aaron Sorkin

“I love writing, but hate starting. The page is awfully white and it says, 'You may have fooled some of the people some of the time but those days are over, Giftless. I'm not your agent and I'm not your mommy: I'm a white piece of paper. You wanna dance with me?' and I really, really don't. I'll go peaceable-like.”
― Aaron Sorkin

“Margaret: Can I - can I just say something for the future?

Leo: Yeah.

Margaret: I can sign the President's name. I have his signature down pretty good.

Leo: You can sign the President's name?

Margaret: Yeah.

Leo: On a document removing him from power and handing it to someone else?

Margaret: Yeah! Or... do you think the White House Counsel would say that was a bad idea?

Leo: I think the White House Counsel would say it was a coup d'etat!

Margaret: Well. I'd probably end up doing some time for that.

Leo: I would think. And what the hell were you doing practicing the President's signature?

Margaret: It was just for fun.”
― Aaron Sorkin

“Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.”
― Aaron Sorkin

“Toby: All right. It couldn't have gone far, right?

Sam: No.

Toby: Somewhere in this building...is our talent. ”
― Aaron Sorkin

“Mrs. Landingham, does the President have free time this morning?"

"The President has nothing but free time, Toby. Right now he's in the residence eating Cheerios and enjoying Regis and Kathie Lee. Should I get him for you?"

"Sarcasm's a disturbing thing coming from a woman of your age, Mrs. Landingham."

"What age would that be, Toby?"

"Late twenties?"

"Atta boy.”
― Aaron Sorkin