Boyd K. Packer Quotes & Sayings

The idea that life began with mortal birth is preposterous. There is no way to explain life if you believe that. — Boyd K. Packer

Reverence invites Revelation — Boyd K. Packer

The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ has the nourishing power to heal starving spirits of the world. — Boyd K. Packer

Addiction has the capacity to disconnect the human will and nullify moral agency. It can rob one of the power to decide. — Boyd K. Packer

Mature love has a bliss not even imagined by newlyweds. — Boyd K. Packer

Moral standards cannot be changed by battle and cannot be changed by ballot. — Boyd K. Packer

An unusual thing happened after that great first vision. The Prophet Joseph received no additional communication for three years. However, he did not wonder, he did not question, he did not doubt the Lord. The Prophet Joseph patiently waited. The Prophet Joseph taught us the principle of patience-by example. — Boyd K. Packer

At the temple the dust of distraction seems to settle out, the fog and the haze seem to lift, and we can 'see' things that we were not able to see before and find a way through our troubles that we had not previously known. — Boyd K. Packer

Do you realize how marvelous it is that you can call upon the Atonement? The Lord effected the Atonement for our sakes. And there isn't anything that you can't repent from and that you can't be rescued from if you will repent and be determined to make the decision. — Boyd K. Packer

However common irreverence and profanity become, they are nonetheless wrong — Boyd K. Packer

Happiness will depend on what each of us does with what each has, what we learn from what we do, and what we do thereafter. — Boyd K. Packer

The Lord will bless us as we attend to the sacred ordinance work of the temples. Blessings there will not be limited to our temple service. We will be blessed in all of our affairs. — Boyd K. Packer

If prayer is to leave the public schools, let the ridicule of prayer leave also. — Boyd K. Packer

The Word of Wisdom does not promise you perfect health, but it teaches how to keep the body you were born with in the best condition and your mind alert to delicate spiritual promptings. — Boyd K. Packer

The spiritually starving hesitate to partake of the Spirit like a child's reaction to new and strange food. They must be offered a tiny bite on a spoon. — Boyd K. Packer

Those who will repent and forsake sin will find that His merciful arm is outstretched still. Those who listen to and heed His words and the words of His chosen servants will find peace and understanding even in the midst of great heartache and sorrow. The result of His sacrifice is to free us from the effects of sin, that all may have guilt erased and feel hope. — Boyd K. Packer

Happiness is inseparably connected with decent, clean behavior. — Boyd K. Packer

If you need a transfusion of spiritual strength then just ask for it. We call that Prayer. Prayer is powerful spiritual medicine. — Boyd K. Packer

Probably the greatest challenge and the most difficult thing you will face in mortal life is to learn to control your thoughts. In the Bible it says, as a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he." Those who can control their thoughts have conquered themselves. — Boyd K. Packer

Our children were allowed to help when they were little, urged to help when they grew a little older, and sometimes ordered to help when they were teenagers. — Boyd K. Packer

If our view is limited to mortal life, some things become unbearable because they seem so unfair and so permanent. — Boyd K. Packer

Arms now empty will be filled and hearts now hurting from broken dreams and yearning will be healed. — Boyd K. Packer

Punctuality is an essential trait of the teacher. It is a foundation, not an embellishment. — Boyd K. Packer

There's no credit buying on eternal things, none at all. Anything that is worthwhile has to be paid for in advance. — Boyd K. Packer

Throughout your life there may be times when you have gone places you never should have gone and done things you never should have done. If you will turn away from sin, you will be able one day to know the peace that comes from following the pathway of complete repentance. — Boyd K. Packer

If [we] have a good, miserable day once in a while, or several in a row, stand steady and face them. Things will straighten out. There is great purpose in our struggle in life. — Boyd K. Packer

Unwinding a habit that you have allowed to entangle you can be difficult. But the power is in you. Do not despair. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that 'all beings who have bodies have power over those who have not.' You can resist temptation! — Boyd K. Packer

Young men speak about the future because they have no past, and old men speak of the past because they have no future. — Boyd K. Packer

Some people think a miracle is only a miracle if it happens instantaneously, but miracles can grow slowly and patience and faith can compel things to happen that otherwise never would have come to pass. — Boyd K. Packer

You may in time of trouble think that you are not worth saving because you have made mistakes, big or little, and you think you are now lost. That is never true! Only repentance can heal what hurts. But repentancecan heal what hurts, no matter what it is. — Boyd K. Packer

The purest, most beautiful and appealing experiences of life: romance, love, marriage, and parenthood. — Boyd K. Packer

Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more. — Boyd K. Packer

We live in a day when the adversary stresses on every hand the philosophy of instant gratification. We seem to demand instant everything, including instant solutions to our problems ... It was meant to be that life would be a challenge. To suffer some anxiety, some depression, some disappointment, even some failure is normal. — Boyd K. Packer

No one of us can survive in the world of today, much less what it will become, without personal inspiration. — Boyd K. Packer

It is my conviction that your generation is better and stronger than was ours ... better in many ways! I have the faith that you young men and young women can meet the world on its own terms and conquer it. — Boyd K. Packer

Our purpose is to produce students who have that rare and precious combination of a superb secular education, complemented by faith in the Lord, a knowledge of the doctrines He has revealed, and a testimony that they are true. — Boyd K. Packer

Inherent in the ordination to be bishop is both the right and the obligation to be directed by inspiration. — Boyd K. Packer

You parents and you families whose lives must be reordered because of a handicapped one, whose
resources and time must be devoted to them, are special heros. You are manifesting the works of God
with every thought, with every gesture of tenderness and care you extend to the handicapped loved one.
Never mind the tears nor the hours of regret and discouragement; never mind the times when you feel
you cannot stand another day of what is required. You are living the principles of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ in exceptional purity. And you perfect yourself in the process, 6 April 1991 — Boyd K. Packer

No teaching is equal, more spiritually rewarding, or more exalting than that of a mother teaching her children. — Boyd K. Packer

If you have seen one of the temples at night, fully lighted, you know what an impressive sight that can be. The house of the Lord, bathed in light, standing out in the darkness, becomes symbolic of the power and the inspiration of the gospel of Jesus Christ standing as a beacon in a world that sinks ever further into spiritual darkness. — Boyd K. Packer

Nowhere are the generosity and the kindness and mercy of God more manifest than in repentance. — Boyd K. Packer

In or out of marriage, abortion is not an individual choice. At a minimum, three lives are involved. — Boyd K. Packer

I have a hard time with historians because they idolize the truth. The truth is not uplifting; it destroys. I could tell most of the secretaries in the church office building that they are ugly and fat. That would be the truth, but it would hurt and destroy them. Historians should tell only that part of the truth that is inspiring and uplifting. — Boyd K. Packer

Christ's mercy is the mighty healer; even to the wounded innocent. — Boyd K. Packer

Temple. One other word is equal in importance to a Latter-day Saint. Home. Put the words holy temple and home together, and you have described the house of the Lord! — Boyd K. Packer

Like most things of great worth, knowledge which is of eternal value comes only through personal prayer and pondering. These, joined with fasting and scripture study, will invite impressions and revelations and the whisperings of the Holy Spirit. This provides us with instruction from on high as we learn precept upon precept. — Boyd K. Packer

Freedom is not a self-preserving gift. It has to be earned, and it has to be protected. — Boyd K. Packer

The rapid, sweeping deterioration of values is characterized by a preoccupation-even an obsession-with the procreative act. Abstinence before marriage and fidelity within it are openly scoffed at-marriage and parenthood ridiculed as burdensome, unnecessary. Modesty, a virtue of a refined individual or society, is all but gone. — Boyd K. Packer

Seek worthy companions. Attend church faithfully. Never fail daily to seek for help through prayer. And I promise you that the way will be easier and you shall have a composure of mind and a confident attitude toward life and the future. You shall be warned of dangers and shall be guided through the whisperings of the Holy Spirit. — Boyd K. Packer

No service in the Church or in the community transcends that given in the home. — Boyd K. Packer

All are born with the Light of Christ, a guiding influence which permits each person to recognize right from wrong. What we do with that light and how we respond to those promptings to live righteously is part of the test of mortality. — Boyd K. Packer

The gospel teaches us to be happy, to have faith rather than fear, to find hope and overcome despair, to leave darkness and turn toward the light of the everlasting gospel. — Boyd K. Packer

How grateful we are for you, our youth. — Boyd K. Packer

Learn to pray. Pray often. Pray in your mind, in your heart. Pray on your knees. Prayer is your personal key to heaven. The lock is on your side of the veil. And I have learned to conclude all my prayers with 'Thy will be done' (Matthew 6:10; see also Luke 11:2; 3 Nephi 13:10). — Boyd K. Packer

The choice of life is not between fame and fortune, nor wealth and poverty, but between good and evil. — Boyd K. Packer

You cannot force spiritual things. A testimony is not thrust upon you; it grows. And a testimony is a testimony, and it should be respected, whether it is small or large. We become taller in our testimony like we grow in physical stature and hardly know it is happening, because it comes by growth. — Boyd K. Packer

Peace can be settled in the heart of each who turns to the scriptures and unlocks the promises of protection and redemption that are taught therein. — Boyd K. Packer

There are spiritual and physical laws to obey if we are to be happy. — Boyd K. Packer

No pain will last forever. It is not easy, but life was never meant to be either easy or fair. Repentance and the lasting hope that forgiveness brings will always be worth the effort. — Boyd K. Packer

The priesthood holds consummate power. It can protect you from the plague of pornography-and it is a plague-if you are succumbing to its influence. If one is obedient, the priesthood can show how to break a habit and even erase an addiction. Holders of the priesthood have that authority and should employ it to combat evil influences. — Boyd K. Packer

You ought to know that the Lord loves you. He will make that known to you, and it will be a very private and individual experience, something you cannot explain to anyone else. — Boyd K. Packer

In recent years we might be compared to a team of doctors issuing prescriptions to cure or to immunize our members against spiritual diseases. Each time some moral or spiritual ailment was diagnosed, we have rushed to the pharmacy to concoct another remedy, encapsulate it as a program and send it out with pages of directions for use... Over medication, over-programming is a critically serious problem. — Boyd K. Packer

In the eternal scheme of things - not always in mortality - righteous yearning and longing will be fulfilled. — Boyd K. Packer

Some are filled with a compelling urge, a temptation that recycles in the mind, perhaps to become a habit, then an addiction. We are prone to some transgression and sin and also a rationalization that we have no guilt because we were born that way. We become trapped, and hence comes the pain and torment that only the Savior can heal. You have the power to stop and to be redeemed. — Boyd K. Packer

Thoughts, like water, will stay on course if we make a place for them to go. As you learn to control your thoughts, you can gain courage, conquer fear and have a happy life. — Boyd K. Packer

Things we cannot solve, we must survive. — Boyd K. Packer

When music is presented which, however appropriate for other occasions, does not fit the Sabbath, much is lost ... The Spirit does not ratify speech nor confirm music which lacks spiritual substance. — Boyd K. Packer

We are not free to break our covenants and escape the consequences. — Boyd K. Packer

The gospel stands as true for those who reject it as for those who accept it - both will be judged by it. — Boyd K. Packer

Christ will step in and solve the problem you cannot solve, but you have to pay the price. It does not come without doing that. He is a very kind ruler in the sense that He will always pay the price necessary, but He wants you to do what you should, even if it is painful. — Boyd K. Packer

Family time is sacred time and should be protected and respected. — Boyd K. Packer

I hope to be judged as good a man as my father. Before I hear those words "well done" from my Heavenly Father, I hope to first hear them from my mortal father. — Boyd K. Packer

Most of what we acquire materially is found to not be worth what we must pay spiritually. — Boyd K. Packer

The gift of the Holy Ghost operates equally with men, women, and even little children. It is within this wondrous gift and power that the spiritual remedy to any problem can be found. — Boyd K. Packer

Every soul confined in a prison of sin, guilt, or perversion has a key to the gate. The key is labeled "repentance." If you know how to use this key, the adversary cannot hold you. — Boyd K. Packer

The flak is always the heaviest closest to the target — Boyd K. Packer

Those who choose, conduct, present, and accompany the music may influence the spirit of reverence ... more than a speaker does. — Boyd K. Packer

His judgments are just; His mercy without limit; His power to compensate beyond any earthly comparison. — Boyd K. Packer

Everyone is tested. One might think it is unfair to be singled out and subjected to a particular temptation, but this is the purpose of mortal life - to be tested. And the answer is the same for everyone: we must, and we can, resist temptations of any kind. — Boyd K. Packer

Teach yourself and teach your families about the gift of the Holy Ghost and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. You will do no greater eternal work than within the walls of your own home. — Boyd K. Packer

The flow of revelation depends on your faith.
As you test gospel principles by believing
without knowing, the Spirit will begin to teach
you. Gradually your faith will be replaced with knowledge. — Boyd K. Packer

Our whole social order could self-destruct over the obsession with freedom disconnected from responsibility; where choice is imagined to be somehow independent of consequences. — Boyd K. Packer

I bear witness of the power of the priesthood given to the Church to protect us and guide us. And because we have that, we have no fear of the future. Fear is the opposite of faith. We move forward, certain that the Lord will watch over us, particularly in the family. — Boyd K. Packer

The ultimate end of all activity in the Church is to see a husband and his wife and their children happy at home, protected by the principles and laws of the gospel, sealed safely in the covenants of the everlasting priesthood. Husbands and wives should understand that their first calling-from which they will never be released-is to one another and then to their children. — Boyd K. Packer

True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior. Preoccupation with unworthy behavior can lead to unworthy behavior. That is why we stress so forcefully the study of the doctrines of the gospel. — Boyd K. Packer

Progression: you can start from where you are. — Boyd K. Packer

Go forward without fear. Do not fear the future. Do not fear whatever is ahead of you. Take hold of that supernal gift of the Holy Ghost. Learn to be taught by it. Learn to call upon it. Learn to live by it. And the Spirit of the Lord will attend you, and you will be blessed as it was intended that we should all be blessed by this gift. — Boyd K. Packer

Don't live so that your children go unled because of habits that leave you uninspired. — Boyd K. Packer

Latter-day Saints are not obedient because they are compelled to be obedient. They are obedient because they know certain spiritual truths and have decided, as an expression of their own individual agency, to obey the commandments of God ... We are not obedient because we are blind, we are obedient because we can see — Boyd K. Packer

What a wonderful time to be young. You will see events in your lifetime that will test your courage and extend your faith. If you will face the sunlight of truth, the shadows of discouragement and sin and error will fall behind you. You must never give up! — Boyd K. Packer

Joseph's vision of the Father and the Son opened this dispensation. Then came the Restoration of the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ with the same organization that existed in the primitive Church, built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets. — Boyd K. Packer

A testimony of the hope of redemption is something which cannot be measured or counted. Jesus Christ is the source of that hope. — Boyd K. Packer

The Restoration began with the prayer of a 14-year-old boy and a vision of the Father and the Son. The dispensation of the fulness of times was ushered in.The Restoration of the gospel brought knowledge of the premortal existence. From the scriptures, we know of the Council in Heaven and the decision to send the sons and daughters of God into mortality to receive a body and to be tested (see D&C 138:56; see also Romans 8:16). We are children of God. We have a spirit body housed, for now, in an earthly tabernacle of flesh. The scriptures say, 'Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?' (1 Corinthians 3:16). — Boyd K. Packer

Parents now are concerned about the moral and spiritual diseases. These can have terrible complications when standards and values are abandoned. We must all take protective measures. — Boyd K. Packer

Some worry endlessly over missions that were missed, or marriages that did not turn out, or babies that did not arrive, or children that seem lost, or dreams unfulfilled, or because age limits what they can do. I do not think it pleases the Lord when we worry because we think we never do enough or that what we do is never good enough ... Some needlessly carry a heavy burden of guilt which could be removed through confession and repentance. — Boyd K. Packer

The study of doctrine and the teaching of doctrine will change behavior more than the study of behavior will change behavior. — Boyd K. Packer

Repentance is the key with which we can unlock the prison from inside. We hold that key within our hands, and agency is ours to use it. — Boyd K. Packer

Largely because of television, instead of looking over into that spacious building, we are, in effect, living inside of it. That is your fate in this generation. You are living in that great and spacious building. — Boyd K. Packer

The voice of the Spirit is described in the scriptures as being neither loud nor harsh, not a voice of thunder, neither a voice of great tumultuous noise, but rather as still and small, of perfect mildness, as if it had been a whisper, and it can pierce even the very soul and cause the heart to burn. The Spirit does not get our attention by shouting. — Boyd K. Packer

The ultimate purpose of every teaching, every activity in the Church is that parents and their children are happy at home, sealed in an eternal marriage, and linked to their generations. — Boyd K. Packer