Topic: Responsibility, Matches 82 quotes.

Self-Improvement

Looked at in this light—oneself as a beneficiary and division of labor as a benefactor—it becomes pertinent to re-examine one’s own behaviors, attitudes, actions. If we would best serve our individual self-interest, we would do well to live in harmony with the facts of life, not in disharmony with them.

Looked at in this light, one should do everything possible to increase his own perceptive and exchange powers. It is only by self-improvement that one can best serve self. And, clearly, it is only by self-improvement that one can better serve others—that is, add to someone else’s well-being.

Source: Leonard E. Read
Unearned Riches, The Freeman, December 1956, p.28

Topics: Responsibility

Labor A Sacred Obligation

The only preventive for further decadence in the morals, intelligence, spiritual, and materialistic affairs of man is not less work, but more work, the proper understanding between employee and employer, both of them realizing that they have sacred obligations to one another. He who would hire the laborer should realize that there is imposed upon him a sacred obligation, namely, as stated in Luke that the laborer is worthy of his hire. On the other hand, he who labors with his hands should remember his obligation of an honest day’s labor. It is as the writer of Proverbs declares in 10:4: “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.”

Source: Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
General Conference, October 1944

Topics: Responsibility

The other day one of our young men, in most vitriolic language, was denouncing the bureaucracy of our present government, and someone asked him, to his great embarrassment, what a bureaucrat was, and he did not have the slightest idea, but in his home he had heard bureaucrats denounced. Now, that sort of uncritical denunciation is foolish.

It behooves us, as men holding the Priesthood, to examine governmental procedures and if those procedures result in the general good, if those procedures are compatible with the Gospel, the Lord’s word, it is our business to foster them, and if necessary fight for them, just as it is our business to examine governmental procedures, and where we find them out of harmony with the Lord’s word, to fight against them, no matter what high- sounding names those procedures may be given.

Brethren, let us not be discouraged because we are what is called a minority. What is a minority? The Latin has a motto, multum in parvo: “Much in small space.” In the field of biochemistry it has been proved that one part of adrenalin—one of the endocrine secretions—in 100,000 parts of water, will cause certain live tissue to react. In statistical terms that one part in 100,000 is a minority.

Jesus of Nazareth, in terms of the census, was a pitiful, almost a ridiculous, minority; but Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, is the greatest power we know, before whom ultimately every knee shall bow. Let us not be discouraged by the specious argument that we are of relatively little moment because we are a minority.

Source: Elder Joseph F. Smith
General Conference, October 1943

Topics: Education; Responsibility

Power In The Priesthood

We have the Priesthood of Almighty God, and if we are righteous and magnify it, and exercise it, there is no limit to what we can accomplish in the way of good, no matter how great are the mere numbers arrayed against us.

I pray that we may magnify the Priesthood, that we may have vision, that we may not be led astray by mere names, that we shall be able intelligently to examine governmental procedures, and that bringing our judgment to the matter of government, we shall have wisdom and unusual discernment in selecting men for office who will stand for government that is compatible with the gospel.

I have not heard of it, but I hope that in some of our international conferences the men who are our leaders are big enough to get down on their knees and ask for divine guidance. I have not heard that it was done at Casablanca; I have not heard that it was done at Washington; I have not heard that it was done in Quebec. It may have been. I hope it was. But when we can have men who realize that the solution to our problems must be in terms of the word of the Lord, then shall we have just government; then can we fight a just battle.

Source: Elder Joseph F. Smith
General Conference, October 1943

Topics: Christianity; Leadership; Responsibility; Voting

The Responsibility of The Church

In the spread and perpetuation of the Christian principles that found expression in this cherished government of ours, the Church played the principal role. It has a great stake in freedom. It must be equally zealous to preserve and maintain it. It is its duty whenever that is threatened, either by direct assault or the insidious undermining of the principles on which it rests, to raise its voice in warning and in protest and to throw its whole influence into the scales to preserve that freedom under which men may live and grow toward the ideals taught by the Master.

Source: Elder Albert E. Bowen
General Conference, October 1941

Topics: Responsibility

We are saying that we face a great crisis, that the very existence of our nation is at stake. And yet one class of people is being told and is telling itself that it will not give up one whit of certain alleged gains it has made. It is willing to prepare for the emergency provided that it is not called upon to sacrifice anything. Another Class is demanding assurance against loss, and still another as a matter of self interest and expediency is willing to let vital things wait. By sections and communities we are joining in the mad scramble. I read that the defense commission is being harassed and hampered by the clamors of localities, chambers of commerce, pressure groups, and politicians for the location of this or that industry in this or that place without regard for military requirement or efficiency of the whole program. We want to save our country if we can conveniently, but if it goes down we want to be able to say that our congressman got us a liberal part of the public funds and be sure that we hand ourselves over to the conqueror with plenty of public works on hand and our local vanity satisfied.

Source: Elder Albert E. Bowen
General Conference, October 1940

Topics: Government, Spending; Responsibility

Our plain duty to humanity and to the cause of peace, our duty to our Creator, require that we preserve the moral force and influence we now have, that we regain what we have lost, and that then we increase to the highest possible point this greatest of all instrumentalities for world peace. If we become parties to this world war, on whatever side, to determine the present issues of the war, we shall lose all this moral power and influence, and sink with the world to the level where just our brute might shall be the sole and only measure of our strength. This would be an appalling prostitution of our heritage.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, October 1939

Topics: Responsibility; War

The gathering together upon the land of Zion, and upon her stakes, may be for a defense, and for a refuge from the storm, and from wrath when it shall be poured out without mixture upon the whole earth.

Here is the place of refuge—America. When I read the story last week of the people leaving London, and Paris to go into the rural districts, digging trenches on their front lawns, and gas chambers being built in every home, everybody being prepared to put on gas masks suddenly, as in a few hours these cities might have been engulfed in a terrible raid such as modern war provides, I said: “Thank God for the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that separate us, (at least from the immediate danger,) from these perils. There is no place on earth so secure as in these United States, and it is the business of every Latter-day Saint to be loyal to this government.

That is why the Church is undertaking this relief program, to win everybody off from the back of the government and from off the back of the state, who can stand on his own feet. Many of you aged people may feel somewhat offended that you have been asked if you can support yourselves and not be a burden upon the State or the Nation, for we can lie down upon our Government to the extent that we may imperil its credit and produce the very conditions that would bring the same revolutions and the same troubles that engulf the Old World. God bless us that we may not come to that day, and Latter-day Saints, show the way!

Source: Elder Melvin J. Ballard
General Conference, October 1938

Topics: Responsibility; War; Welfare

No Need For Idleness

Thousands, through no fault of theirs, are out of jobs, and are vainly seeking a means of an independent livelihood. However, failure to find it is no justification for idleness. There are fences to rebuild, barns to repair, yards to clean up, houses to remodel and to paint, vicious and destructive weeds to destroy as they deface the highway and ravage crops. Instead of waiting expectantly for the government to find work for us, let us look around and see if there is not work near at hand. Such work will be a benefit not only to the individual but to the community and the public generally.

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, April 1938

Topics: Responsibility

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