Here is the seventh installment of quotes from my studies of the conference archive talks (If you want to read prior installments click HERE). For the first installment and an explanation of the Conference Archives see “55+ Powerful Quotes From My Study of the Oct. 1970 General Conference” To read this conference report PDF from the Church History Catalog click HERE, for the Archive.org PDF (with speech-to-text, click here). I hope you enjoy these quotes from my studies. But more than enjoy them, I hope they serve as a starting point for your own study of the Oct. 1967 General Conference! Use the page number and the above links to access the full talks. Enjoy!
50+ Relevant Quotes From My Study of the Oct. 1967 General Conference
“Unity of purpose, with all working in harmony within the structure of Church organization as revealed by the Lord, is to be our objective.”
David O. McKay
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 6
“A home in which unity, mutual helpfulness, and love abide is just a bit of heaven on earth.”
David O. McKay
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 7
“The seeds of discord and confusion among the masses caused by riots and violence of all sorts make important the need for complete unity within our own ranks, as we see these worldwide disturbances tear apart the home, and undermine our very civilization.”
David O. McKay
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 8
“If I speak plainly and, in condemnation, refer to reprehensible practices and aims of certain organizations, please do not think that I harbor ill will or enmity in my heart toward other United States citizens or the citizens of any country whose views on political policies do not coincide with mine. But when acts and schemes are manifestly contrary to the revealed word of the Lord, we feel justified in warning people against them. We may be charitable and forbearing to the sinner, but we must condemn the sin.”
David O. McKay
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 9
“We all need to keep in mind that joy is ofttimes camouflaged in the robes of hard work, sorrow, sickness, and a tested faith.”
A. Theodore Tuttle
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 16
“One of the most neglected and yet most needed laws for this troubled generation in a modern world of acceleration and distraction is the law of the fast.”
Robert L. Simpson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 16-17
“Each member of the Church is expected to miss two meals on the fast and testimony Sunday. To skip two consecutive meals and partake of the third normally constitutes approximately a 24-hour period. Such is the counsel.”
Robert L. Simpson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 18
“The law of the fast is a perfect law, and we cannot begin to approach perfection until we decide to make it a part of our lives.”
Robert L. Simpson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 19
“How much you give the bishop as a [Fast Offering] donation is also up to you, but isn’t it thrilling to know that your accounting with the Lord has been paid willingly and with accuracy?”
Robert L. Simpson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 19
“The world needs self-discipline. You can find it in fasting and prayer. Our generation is sick for lack of self-control. Fasting and prayer help to instill this virtue.”
Robert L. Simpson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 19
“The world’s future depends upon an urgent return to family unity.”
Robert L. Simpson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 19
“We all have need to overcome the powers of the adversary. His influence is incompatible with fasting and prayer.”
Robert L. Simpson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 19
“The home is truly the first unit of society, and parenthood is next to Godhood. The relationship of the children to the parents should be one which would enable those children to carry out ideal citizenship as they become related to the state and to the larger forms of society. The secret of good membership in the Church or good citizenship in the nation lies in the home. If and when the time ever comes that parents shift to the state the responsibility of rearing their children, the stability of the nation will be undermined, and its impairment and disintegration will have begun… Would you have a strong and virile nation? — then keep your homes pure. Would you reduce delinquency and crime? — lessen the number of broken homes. It is time that civilized people realize that the home largely determines whether children shall be of high or low character. Home-building, therefore, should be the paramount purpose of parents and of the nation.” (The Improvement Era, Apr. 1963, pp. 252-53.)
David O. McKay (Ellipses as quoted by Victor L. Brown)
CR, Oct. 1967 pp. 19-20
“Increasingly the Latter-day Saints must choose between the reasoning of men and the revelations of God.”
Ezra Taft Benson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 34
“The Lord does not always give reasons for each commandment. Sometimes faithful members, like Adam of old, are called upon to obey an injunction of the Lord even though they do not know the reason why it was given. Those who trust in God will obey him, knowing full well that time will provide the reasons and vindicate their obedience.”
Ezra Taft Benson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 34
“God does not have to justify all his ways for the puny mind of man. If a man gets in tune with the Lord, he will know that God’s course of action is right, even though he may not know all the reasons why.”
Ezra Taft Benson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 34
“The Church, under the inspiration of the Lord, encourages its members to first look to themselves, then their family, then the Church and if need be to other voluntary agencies to help solve the problems of poverty, unemployment, hunger, sickness, and distress.”
Ezra Taft Benson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 34
“If you desire to help your fellowmen the most, then you must put the first commandment first.”
Ezra Taft Benson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 35
“When we fail to put the love of God first, we are easily deceived by crafty men who profess a great love of humanity, while advocating programs that are not of the Lord.”
Ezra Taft Benson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 35
“As far back as 1928, the Communists declared that the cultural, economic, and social differences between the races in America could be exploited by them to create the animosity, fear, and hatred between large segments of our people that would be necessary beginning ingredients for their revolution.
Three-fold attack
Briefly, the three broad objectives were and are as follows:
1. Create hatred
2. Trigger violence
3. Overthrow established governmentFirst, create hatred. Use any means to agitate blacks into hating whites and whites into hating blacks. Work both sides of the split. Play up and exaggerate real grievances. If necessary, don’t hesitate to manufacture false stories and rumors about injustices and brutality. Create martyrs for both sides. Play upon mass emotions until they smolder with resentment and hatred.
Second, trigger violence. Put the emotional masses into the streets in the form of large mobs, the larger the better. It makes no difference if the mob is told to demonstrate “peacefully” so long as it is brought into direct confrontation with the antagonist. Merely bringing the two emotionally charged groups together is like mixing oxygen and hydrogen. All that is needed is one tiny spark. If the spark is not forthcoming from purely spontaneous causes, create it.
Third, overthrow established government. Once mob violence becomes widespread and commonplace, condition those who are emotionally involved to accept violence as the only way to “settle the score” once and for all. Provide leadership and training for guerilla warfare. Institute discipline and terrorism to insure at least passive support from the larger, inactive segment of the population. Train and battle-harden leadership through sporadic riots and battles with police. Finally, at the appointed time, launch an all-out simultaneous offensive in every major city.”
Ezra Taft Benson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 36
“Further encroachment of government should be stopped and the entire process reversed. The solution to most, if not all, of the current problems involving civil rights is less government, not more.”
Ezra Taft Benson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 39
“We need a vast awakening of the American people as to the true nature of the Communist blueprint for revolution… The success or failure of Americans of all races to meet this challenge may well determine the fate of our country. If we fail, we will all lose our civil rights, black man and white man together, for we will live under perfect Communist equality — the equality of slaves.”
Ezra Taft Benson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 39
“Our Father in heaven is not an umpire who is trying to count us out. He is not a competitor who is trying to outsmart us. He is not a prosecutor who is trying to convict us. He is a loving Father who wants our happiness and eternal progress and who will help us all he can if we will but give him in our lives an opportunity to do so with obedience and humility, and faith and patience.”
Richard L. Evans
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 51
“This great nation was founded on prayer… The kneeling figure of George Washington through that bitter winter in Valley Forge is a part of this country that should never be forgotten.”
N. Eldon Tanner
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 51
“Prayer and communication with God is the very cornerstone of our society. If you allow it to be abandoned now, you will be casting away the greatest asset this Nation, or any other nation, has ever known.”
Strom Thurmond quoted by N. Eldon Tanner
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 52
“God has spoken and still speaks, and the message is clear.”
Marion D. Hanks
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 61
“There are no shortcuts to salvation, or excellence, or exaltation — nor to peace and self-respect. Whoever you are, wherever you are: Don’t waste life.”
Richard L. Evans
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 64
“Oh, America — wake up to the peril that confronts you. Arouse yourself from this delirium in which you find yourself. Realize that this Christian nation can never survive on the principles of anti-Christ.”
Mark E. Petersen
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 68 (Click HERE to read his full talk “The American Travail”)
“We have the challenge; we ought now to concentrate on developing and improving our present physical house, which tabernacles a spirit child of God, and prepare it for eternal glory.”
Delbert L. Stapley
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 71
“Be not deceived and led astray by the wiles and seductive “charms” of those advocating that which they call the “new morality.” There is no such thing. It is a name only, given to an old evil whose ultimate effect is to destroy man, the thing it has done under other guises through the centuries. It will never permit you to build a house that will bear the weight of eternal life.”
Delbert L. Stapley
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 75
“Keep eternity always before you here in mortality and base your acts and judgments and decisions upon God’s eternal laws. We should educate ourselves not only for time but also for eternity.”
Delbert L. Stapley
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 75
“The home must ever foster the great and lasting virtues of purity of life, honesty, thrift, benevolence, and patriotism. To do this requires effort from both mother and father. It cannot be relegated to a baby sitter or a nursery school.”
John H. Vandenberg
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 76
“It is sound doctrine for the mother to assume her divinely appointed role as “keeper at home,” and the father to provide for his family, and for both mother and father to restore parental authority in the home through sound teachings and wise love and discipline of their children.”
John H. Vandenberg
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 78
“What is meant by the expression “that it shall leave them neither root nor branch”? This expression simply means that wicked and indifferent persons who reject the gospel of Jesus Christ will have no family inheritance or patriarchal lineage — neither root (ancestors or progenitors) nor branch (children or posterity). Such persons cannot be received into the celestial kingdom of glory of resurrected beings, but must be content with a lesser blessing.”
Theodore M. Burton
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 81
“Home teaching, in essence, means that we consider separately each individual member of the family who constitutes the entire home personnel. Home teaching, as distinguished from ward teaching, is to help the parents with home problems in their efforts to teach their families the fundamentals of parental responsibility, as contrasted with merely bringing a message, a gospel message, to the entire family.”
Harold B. Lee
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 100
“Much of what we do organizationally, then, is scaffolding, as we seek to build the individual, and we must not mistake the scaffolding for the soul.”
Harold B. Lee
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 107
“President Grant often used to tell us that we sing ‘We thank thee O God for a prophet, to guide us in these latter days,’ but, he said, ‘There are many of the Latter-day Saints who would like to add a P.S.: ‘Providing he doesn’t ask us to do what we don’t want to do.’”
LeGrand Richards
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 109
“I hope that we don’t accept the counsel and the advice of our great leaders with any reservation, and that we want to do all they would have us do.”
LeGrand Richards
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 109
“I believe in the universal Fatherhood of God and the consequent universal brotherhood of man.”
Hugh B. Brown
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 117
“I believe Joseph Smith was a prophet because he did many superhuman things. One was translating the Book of Mormon, which is a history of the ancient inhabitants of America. Some people will not agree, but I submit that Joseph Smith in translating the Book of Mormon did a superhuman work I ask anyone to undertake to write the story of the ancient inhabitants of America, to write as he did without any source material. He must include in the story 54 chapters dealing with wars, 21 historical chapters, 55 chapters on visions and prophecies (and remember, when the writer begins to write on visions and prophecies, he must have the record agree meticulously with the Bible). He must write 71 chapters on doctrine and exhortation, and here too, he must check every statement with the scriptures or he will be proved to be a fraud. He must write 21 chapters on the ministry of Christ, and everything the writer claims Jesus said and did and every testimony he writes in the book about him must agree absolutely with the New Testament.
I ask, would anyone like to undertake such a task? I point out, too, that he must employ figures of speech, similes, metaphors, narration, exposition, description, oratory, epic, lyric, logic, and parables. I ask the writer to remember that the man who translated the Book of Mormon was a young man who had very little schooling, and yet he dictated that book in just a little over two months and made very few, if any, corrections. For over one hundred years, some of the best students and scholars of the world have been trying to prove from the Bible that the Book of Mormon is a fraud, but not one of them has been able to prove that anything in it was contrary to the scriptures, the Bible, the word of God.”
Hugh B. Brown
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 119-120
“However common irreverence and profanity become, they are none the less wrong.”
Boyd K. Packer
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 128-129
“The disease of profanity, now in epidemic proportions, is spreading across the land, and so, in his name, we pray that a purity of heart might descend upon us, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”
Boyd K. Packer
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 129
“The battle for our immortal souls is no less important than the battle fought by David. The enemy is no less formidable, the help of Almighty God no farther away. What will our action be? Like David of old, “our cause is just.” We have been placed upon earth not to fail or fall victim to temptation’s snare, but rather to succeed. Our giant, our Goliath, must be conquered.”
Thomas S. Monson
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 131
“If you think strongly enough you will be forced by science to the belief in God.”
Lord Kelvin as quoted by Marion G. Romney
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 134
“I know that God lives, that he is my Father, and that Jesus Christ is my Redeemer and that he spoke the truth when he said: ‘It shall come to pass that every soul who forsaketh his sins and cometh unto me, and calleth on my name, and obeyeth my voice and keepeth my commandments, shall see my face and know that I am.’ (D&C 93:1.) Now this testimony, my brethren and sisters, I bear unto you in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, and in the authority of the holy apostleship which I hold, and I tell you it will be binding upon you.”
Marion G. Romney
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 134
“The destiny of America can be realized and the work of the Lord can be accomplished only through the exercising of the guarantees given us in the Constitution of the United States.”
ElRay L. Christiansen
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 138 (Click HERE to read his full talk “Constitutional Government: A Divine Principle”)
“The leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have taught its members ever since its organization to honor and respect the Constitution of the United States as well as the men who brought it forth and who were patriots indeed!”
ElRay L. Christiansen
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 138 (Click HERE to read his full talk “Constitutional Government: A Divine Principle”)
“Under the guidance of the Lord was established a government based upon a written constitution in which were set forth the laws whereby its citizens were to maintain their freedom, freedom for us—
To live,
To pray and worship,
To work,
To own property,
To keep and bear arms,
To educate our children,
To assemble together,
To be tried by a jury,
To speak without fear of being cast into jail,
To go where we choose and do as we wish, so long as we do not jeopardize the rights, the welfare, and the safety of others.
Doubtless in all the world there is no document to compare with this “heavenly banner,” this “glorious standard,” the Constitution of the United States!”
ElRay L. Christiansen
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 138 (Click HERE to read his full talk “Constitutional Government: A Divine Principle”)
“In any society, good government can be had only if administered by good men, selected by good citizens.”
ElRay L. Christiansen
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 138 (Click HERE to read his full talk “Constitutional Government: A Divine Principle”)
“To be a good citizen, we should learn for ourselves what is set forth in the constitution. This knowledge can be obtained only through individual study of the document itself. We must not only study it, but we must also guard it. It was Daniel Webster who uttered these prophetic words: ‘Watchful guardianship over the Constitution is the proper means for its support.’”
ElRay L. Christiansen
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 138 (Click HERE to read his full talk “Constitutional Government: A Divine Principle”)
“There is no entrance into the kingdom of God for those who are accountable, unless they use the principles of repentance. Repentance is God’s law to purify the human soul to greater self-control and to perfection. Growth in God’s righteousness comes from the principle of repentance and must be used for eternal progression.”
Bernard P. Brockbank
CR, Oct. 1967, pp. 145
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