Naive optimism and pervasive pessimism are both to be avoided, therefore. It's not an easy balance to maintain, to be asked to work away in the Ninevehs of our lives without being so conscious of the coming cataclysm that we are not serious citizens of our communities and nations. By living and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are doing the most relevant thing we can do by way of helping. (There are civic and other chores to be done, of course.) Day in and day out, the gospel is the one thing that is most relevant, and we are to be of good cheer.
More Quotes from Neal A. Maxwell:
We are all aware of man's poor peripheral vision in that his views are often narrow and heedless of what is going on on each side of him. Man's problem is often one of length of view, too. This poorness of perspective often produces wonderful and pathetic paradoxes men who have been given the blessings of life by the grace of God, cry that life is senseless men who have been given breath and voice by God, use the powers of speech to deny God's existence men who have been given the capacity to feel, exult so much in this gift that sensual things sublimate spiritual things and some men who see our reaching out to distant places in our solar system conclude that this special planet is a random, unplanned mutant and refuse to connect the order of physical laws (that makes such journeys into space possible) with an Orderer.Neal A. Maxwell
When we rejoice in great music and art, it is but the flexing of instincts learned in the previous life.
Neal A. Maxwell
Looking for honest ways to lift one another would ... be more beneficial to our own self-esteem, for we would see more good in ourselves. We would cease to be so critical of our weaknesses and would find ways to allow our weaknesses to become strengths with Gods help.
Neal A. Maxwell
C. S. Lewis put it well when he gave us the analogy of remodeling the human soul and a living house 'Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently, He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage but He is building a palace.' (Mere Christianity New York Macmillan, 1960, p. 174.)
Neal A. Maxwell
A patient willingness to defer dividends is a hallmark of individual maturity.
Neal A. Maxwell
There is also the very real possibility that, in the justice of God, one of the reasons He uses the weak and the foolish of the world is so that no argument could be made later that certain people were advantaged in some unfair way by that which was unearnedeither in the premortal life or here. Hence it seems prudent for us to realize that just because one is set apart or ordained to a certain calling or assignment he or she must not expect to be set apart from the stresses of life. There appear to be no immunities.
Neal A. Maxwell
Readers Who Like This Quotation Also Like:
Based on Topics: Christianity Quotes, Jesus Christ Quotes, Pessimism QuotesBased on Keywords: cataclysm, chores
So that, to me, is important that audiences are treated with an amount of respect toward their intelligence. Most Hollywood films don't respect their intelligence.
Eriq La Salle
Monsieur Puss came at last to a stately castle, the master of which was an Ogre, the richest ever known; for all the lands which the King had then passed through belonged to this castle.
Charles Perrault
Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it's because you've started to think of failure.
Tommy Lasorda