David O. McKay Quotes

Appreciation is a great virtue, and if husbands and wives expressed it more frequently in our homes, wives would be happier, and husbands would probably be more kind" (Gospel Ideals, p. 475).

Next to the bestowal of life itself, the right to direct that life is God's greatest gift to man.

Each one of us is the architect of his own fate; and he is unfortunate indeed who will try to build himself without the inspiration of God, without realizing that he grows from within, not from without.

The greatest battles of life are fought out daily in the silent chambers of the soul.

The true purpose of life is the perfection of humanity through individual effort, under the guidance of God's inspiration. Real life is response to the best within us. To be alive only to appetite, pleasure, pride, money-making, and not to goodness and kindness, purity and love, poetry, music, flowers, stars, God and eternal hopes, is to deprive one's self of the real joy of living.

As with companions so with books. We may choose those which will make us better, more intelligent, more appreciative of the good and the beautiful in the world, or we may choose the trashy, the vulgar, the obscene, which will make us feel as though we've been 'wallowing in the mire.

True education does not consist merely in the acquiring of a few facts of science, history, literature, or art, but in the development of character.

The home is the first and most effective place to learn the lessons of life: truth, honor, virtue, self control, the value of education, honest work, and the purpose and privilege of life. Nothing can take the place of home in rearing and teaching children, and no other success can compensate for failure in the home.