Phillip Thomson > Phillip's Quotes

“We live in a day when the adversary stresses on every hand the philosophy of instant gratification. We seem to demand instant everything, including instant solutions to our problems. . .It was meant to be that life would be a challenge. To suffer some anxiety, some depression, some disappointment, even some failure is normal.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Things we cannot solve, we must survive.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Learn to pray. Pray often. Pray in your mind, in your heart. Pray on your knees. Prayer is your personal key to heaven. The lock is on your side of the veil. And I have learned to conclude all my prayers with ‘Thy will be done’ (Matthew 6:10; see also Luke 11:2; 3 Nephi 13:10).”
― Boyd K. Packer

“The study of doctrine and the teaching of doctrine will change behavior more than the study of behavior will change behavior.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Reverence invites Revelation”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Happiness will depend on what each of us does with what each has, what we learn from what we do, and what we do thereafter.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Happily ever after never happens in the second act.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Our whole social order could self-destruct over the obsession with freedom disconnected from responsibility; where choice is imagined to be somehow independent of consequences.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“No one of us can survive in the world of today, much less what it will become, without personal inspiration. ”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Those who choose, conduct, present, and accompany the music may influence the spirit of reverence ... more than a speaker does.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Everyone is tested. One might think it is unfair to be singled out and subjected to a particular temptation, but this is the purpose of mortal life—to be tested. And the answer is the same for everyone: we must, and we can, resist temptations of any kind.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“The flow of revelation depends on your faith.
As you test gospel principles by believing
without knowing, the Spirit will begin to teach
you. Gradually your faith will be replaced with knowledge.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Some are filled with a compelling urge, a temptation that recycles in the mind, perhaps to become a habit, then an addiction. We are prone to some transgression and sin and also a rationalization that we have no guilt because we were born that way. We become trapped, and hence comes the pain and torment that only the Savior can heal. You have the power to stop and to be redeemed.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“The first gift that Adam and Eve received was agency: ‘Thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee’ (Moses 3:17). You have that same agency. Use it wisely to deny acting on any impure impulse or unholy temptation that may come into your mind. Just do not go there, and if you are already there, come back out of it. ‘Deny yourselves of all ungodliness’ (Moroni 10:32).”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Thoughts, like water, will stay on course if we make a place for them to go. As you learn to control your thoughts, you can gain courage, conquer fear and have a happy life.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Probably the greatest challenge and the most difficult thing you will face in mortal life is to learn to control your thoughts. In the Bible it says, as a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he." Those who can control their thoughts have conquered themselves.”
― Boyd K Packer

“Fear is the opposite of faith”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Every soul confined to a concentration camp of sin and guilt has a key to the gate. The adversary cannot hold them if they know how to use it. The key is labeled Repentance.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“One of the adversary’s sharpest tools is to convince us that we are no longer worthy to pray. No matter who you are or what you may have done, you can always pray.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Tolerance is a virtue, but like all virtues, when exaggerated, it transforms itself into a vice. We need to be careful of the ‘tolerance trap’ so that we are not swallowed up in it. The permissiveness afforded by the weakening of the laws of the land to tolerate legalized acts of immorality does not reduce the serious spiritual consequence that is the result of the violation of God’s law of chastity.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Christ will step in and solve the problem you cannot solve, but you have to pay the price. It does not come without doing that. He is a very kind ruler in the sense that He will always pay the price necessary, but He wants you to do what you should, even if it is painful.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“If [we] have a good, miserable day once in a while, or several in a row, stand steady and face them. Things will straighten out. There is great purpose in our struggle in life.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“If the adversary should take you prisoner due to misconduct, I remind you that you hold the key that will unlock the prison door from the inside. You can be washed clean through the atoning sacrifice of the Savior Jesus Christ. You may in time of trouble think that you are not worth saving because you have made mistakes, big or little, and you think you are now lost. That is never true! …Repentance can heal what hurts, no matter what it is.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“I promise that the brilliant morning of forgiveness can come. Then “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” comes into your life once again, something like a sunrise, and you and He “will remember your sin no more.” How will you know? You will know! This is what I have come to teach you who are in trouble. He will step in and solve the problem you cannot solve, but you have to pay the price. It does not come without doing that. He is a very kind ruler in the sense that He will always pay the price necessary, but He wants you to do what you should, even if it is painful.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Unwinding a habit that you have allowed to entangle you can be difficult. But the power is in you. Do not despair. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that ‘all beings who have bodies have power over those who have not.’ You can resist temptation!”
― Boyd K. Packer

“With thoughtless and impatient hands We tangle up the plans The Lord hath wrought. And when we cry in pain He saith, “Be quiet, man, while I untie the knot.” (Author unknown, in Jack M. Lyon et al., Best-Loved Poems of the LDS People [1996], 304)”
― Boyd K. Packer, Truths Most Worth Knowing

“Go forward without fear. Do not fear the future. Do not fear whatever is ahead of you. Take hold of that supernal gift of the Holy Ghost. Learn to be taught by it. Learn to call upon it. Learn to live by it. And the Spirit of the Lord will attend you, and you will be blessed as it was intended that we should all be blessed by this gift.”
― Boyd K. Packer, Truths Most Worth Knowing

“What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?
For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?
Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,
Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?”
― William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

“The sensualist, I'll allow ye, begins by pursuing a real pleasure, though a small one. His sin is the less. but the time comes on when, though the pleasure becomes less and less and the craving fiercer and fiercer, and though he knows that joy can never come that way, yet he prefers to joy the mere fondling of unappeasable lust and would not have it taken from him. he'd fight to the death to keep it. He'd like well to be able to scratch: but even when he can scratch no more he'd rather itch than not.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce