The Best Way to Learn

"Teaching is the best way to learn, I'm still convinced of that; by passing on our knowledge we continue to discover and learn. Moreover, this activity forces us each time to a new formulation of what we want to express, forces us to new [attempts], [a] constant search of new methods. The constant links with youth helps us to always have a youthful outlook, make us able to surprise ourselves constantly.."

(Erno Rubik, inventor of Rubik's Cube, London speech,1/31/81)

Making Ordinary People Winners

“The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate ‘apparently ordinary’ people to unusual effort. The tough problem is not in identifying winners: it is in making winners out of ordinary people. That, after all, is the overwhelming purpose of education. Yet historically, in most of the periods emphasizing excellence education has reverted to selecting winners rather than creating them."

(K. Patricia Cross, scholar of educational research)

We Must Prove Ourselves

 “President Brigham Young explained that our families are not yet ours. The Lord has committed them to us to see how we will treat them. Only if we are faithful will they be given to us forever. What we do on earth determines whether or not we will be worthy to become heavenly parents (see chapter 2, Our Heavenly Family).” Gospel Principles, p.231

Don't drift through life

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving - we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it - but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Life is like an old time railway journey

“Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed. The fact is that most putts don’t drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to be just like people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration, and most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is just like an old time rail journey ... delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.” (Jenkins Lloyd Jones, Deseret News, 12 June 1973)

Are you being neutralized in the battle?

“The devil knows that if the elders of Israel should ever wake up, they could step forth and help preserve freedom and extend the gospel. Therefore the devil has concentrated, and to a large extent successfully, in neutralizing much of the priesthood. He has reduced them to sleeping giants… The Prophet Joseph Smith declared it will be the elders of Israel who will step forward to help save the Constitution, not the Church. And have we elders been warned? Yes, we have. And have we elders been given the guide lines? Yes indeed, we have. And besides, if the Church should ever inaugurate a program, who do you think would be in the forefront to get it moving? It would not be those who were sitting on the sidelines prior to that time or those who were appeasing the enemy. It would be those choice spirits who, not waiting to be ‘commanded in all things,’ used their own free will, the counsel of the prophets and the Spirit of the Lord as guidelines and who entered the battle ‘in a good cause’ and brought to pass much righteousness in freedom's cause. Brethren, if we had done our homework and were faithful, we could step forward at this time and help save this country. The fact that most of us are unprepared to do it is an indictment we will have to bear. The longer we wait, the heavier the chains, the deeper the blood, the more the persecution and the less we can carry out our God-given mandate and world-wide mission. The war in heaven is raging on earth today. Are you being neutralized in the battle?” (Elder Ezra Taft Benson, Not Commanded in All Things, CR., April 1965,  p.123-125)

Hot or Cold?

“Latter-day Saints should be thoroughly loyal to the course of life laid out in the Gospel plan. A milk-and-water allegiance kills; while a passionate devotion gives life and soul to any cause and its adherents. The troubles of the world may largely be laid at the doors of those who are neither hot nor cold; who always follow the line of least resistance; whose timid hearts flutter at taking sides for truth. As in the great Council in the heavens, so in the Church of Christ on earth, there can be no neutrality. We are, or we are not, on the side of the Lord. An unrelenting faith, contemptuous of all compromise, will lead the Church and every member of it, to triumph and the achievement of our high destiny” (Elder John A. Widtsoe, CR., April 1941, p.117).