Howard William Hunter was an American lawyer and was the 14th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1994 to 1995. His nine-month presidential tenure is the shortest in the church’s history. Hunter was the first president of the LDS Church born in the 20th century and the last to die in it. He was sustained as an LDS apostle at the age of 51, and served as a general authority for over 35 years.
Hunter served in several LDS Church assignments not directly related to ecclesiastical matters while a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Brigham Young University and closely involved with the founding of the J. Reuben Clark Law School. He also was a member of the Board of Trustees of the New World Archaeology Foundation, chairman of the board of the Polynesian Cultural Center, and president of the Genealogical Society of Utah. (via Wikipedia)
On Love:
We need to remember that though we make our friends, God has made our neighbors everywhere. Love should have no boundary we should have no narrow loyalties.
This Christmas mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a letter. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love, and then speak it again.
On Life:
Perhaps no promise in life is more reassuring than that promise of divine assistance and spiritual guidance in times of need. It is a gift freely given from heaven, a gift that we need from our earliest youth.
Being happily and successfully married is generally not so much a matter of marrying the right person as it is being the right person.
On God:
The ability to stand by one’s principles, to live with integrity and faith according to one’s beliefthat is what matters, that is the difference between a contribution and a commitment. That devotion to true principle in our individual lives, in our homes and families, and in all places that we meet and influence other peoplethat devotion is what God is ultimately requesting of us.
We need to remember that though we make our friends, God has made our neighbors everywhere. Love should have no boundary we should have no narrow loyalties.
God’s chief way of acting is by persuasion and patience and long-suffering, not by coercion and stark confrontation. He acts by gentle solicitation and by sweet enticement. He always acts with unfailing respect for the freedom and independence that we possess.
If prayer is only a spasmodic cry at the time of crisis, then it is utterly selfish, and we come to think of God as a repairman or a service agency to help us only in our emergencies. We should remember the Most High day and night-always-not only at times when all other assistance has failed and we desperately need help.
Look to the temple of the Lord as the great symbol of your membership.
On Jesus Christ:
The atonement of Jesus Christ is the supreme act of love, the supreme example of selfless concern for others.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not limited to a system of beliefs it is a plan of action.
Those who are filled with the love of Christ do not seek to force others to do better, they inspire others to do better.
If our lives and our faith are centered on Jesus Christ and his restored gospel, nothing can ever go permanently wrong.
The world in which we live would benefit greatly if men and women everywhere would exercise the pure love of Christ, which is kind, meek, and lowly. This is without envy or pride. It does not countenance evil or ill will, nor rejoice in iniquity; it has no place for bigotry, hatred, or violence.
Whatever Jesus lays His hands upon, lives. If He lays is hands upon a marriage, it lives.
Other Quotes:
If you feel that . . . what you do this year or in the years to come does not make you very famous, take heart. Most of the best people who ever lived weren’t very famous either.
To dig a straight furrow, the plowman needs to keep his eyes on a fixed point ahead of him. That keeps him on a true course. If, however, he happens to look back to see where he has been, his chances of straying are increased. The results are crooked and irregular furrows…Fix your attention on your…goals and never look back on your earlier problems.
True greatness…always requires regular, consistent, small, and sometimes ordinary and mundane steps over a long period of time.