J. Reuben Clark Quotes

If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.

Debt never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation...it is never laid off work...it buys no food; it wears no clothes; it is unhoused... it has neither weddings nor births nor deaths; it has no love, no sympathy; it is as hard and soulless as a granite cliff. Once in debt, it is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it...and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.

I say unto you with all the soberness I can, that we stand in danger of losing our liberties, and that once lost, only blood will bring them back; and we of this church will, in order to keep the Church going forward, have more sacrifices to make, and more persecutions to endure than we have yet known. If the conspiracy comes here it will probably come in its full vigor and there will be a lot of vacant places among those who guide and direct, not only this government, but also this Church of ours.

In the service of the Lord it is not where but how you serve.

I am not a strict constructionalist, believing that we seal our eternal progress by what we do here. It is my belief that God will save all of His children that he can: and while, if we live unrighteously here, we shall not go to the other side in the same status, so to speak, as those who lived righteously; nevertheless, the unrighteous will have their chance, and in the eons of the eternities that are to follow, they, too, may climb to the destinies to which they who are righteous and serve God, have climbed to those eternities that are to come.

There is no royal road to any learning, no matter what it is. There is no royal road to any righteous living, no matter who you are or what you are. There is no royal road to anything that is worthwhile. Nothing that is deserving of earning or of cherishing comes except through hard work. I care not how much of a genius you may be, the rule will still hold.

We get nearer to the Lord through music than perhaps through any other thing except prayer.

Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels.

The principle of allegiance to the Constitution is basic to our freedom....when you see government invading any of these realms of freedom which we have under our Constitution, you will know that they are putting shackles on your liberty, and that tyranny is creeping upon you, ...no matter what the reason and excuse therefore may be.

The ravening wolves are amongst us, from our own membership, and they, more than any others, are clothed in sheep's clothing, because they wear the habiliments of the priesthood…We should be careful of them.

Do you know that all of the money that we are spending, that the government is spending, must come from you? The government has no great pile of gold to which it can go to get what it gives you. The government has not one cent that it does not take from your pockets. Do not imagine, do not believe, do not go on the theory that you are not to pay this bill, unless the fundamentals of our government are to be overturned.

We may first observe that communism and socialism - which we shall hereafter group together and dub Statism - cannot live with Christianity nor with any religion that postulates a Creator such as the Declaration of Independence recognizes. The slaves of Statism must know no power, no authority, no source of blessing, no God, but the State.

It is the eternal, inescapable law that growth comes only from work and preparation, whether the growth be material, mental, or spiritual. Work has no substitute.

Now, I am not caring today, for myself, anything at all about a political party tag. So far as I am concerned, I want to know what the man stands for....When I find out these things, then I know who it is who should receive my support, and I care not what his party tag is....Today, our duty transcends party allegiance; our duty today is allegiance to the Constitution as it was given to us by the Lord.

Let us avoid debt as we would avoid a plague...Let every head of every household see to it that he has on hand enough food and clothing, and, where possible, fuel also, for at least a year ahead...Let every head of household aim to own his own home, free from mortgage. Let us again clothe ourselves with these proved and sterling virtues-honesty, truthfulness, chastity, sobriety, temperance, industry, and thrift; let us discard all covetousness and greed.

May the Lord be with us at all times, under all circumstances; may he bring into our lives a burning desire to uphold the Constitution, a living faith in its inspired origin, that we may always be found among those who shall support it to the last breath.

Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.

Let us again clothe ourselves with these proved and sterling virtues - honesty, truthfulness, chastity, sobriety, temperance, industry, and thrift; let us discard all covetousness and greed.

There is no curse equal to the curse of idleness. It destroys the man, the group, the people, or the nation who suffer under it.

Let every head of household see to it that he has on hand enough food and clothing and, where possible, fuel also for at least a year ahead.

...when we really get into hard times, where food is scarce or there is none at all, and so with clothing and shelter, money may be no good for there may be nothing to buy, and you cannot eat money, you cannot get enough of it together to burn to keep you warm, and you cannot wear it.

You have the highest of human trusts committed to your care. Providence has showered on this favored land blessings without number, and has chosen you as the guardians of freedom, to preserve it for the benefit of the human race. May He who holds in his hands the destinies of nations, make you worthy of the favors He has bestowed, and enabled you with pure hearts and hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend to the end of time, the great charge He has committed to your keeping.

Not only does the Charter Organization not prevent future wars, but it makes it practically certain that we shall have future wars, and as to such wars it takes from us the power to declare them, to choose the side on which we shall fight, to determine what forces and military equipment we shall use in the war, and to control and command our sons who do the fighting.

Reduced to its lowest terms, the great struggle which now rocks the whole earth more and more takes on the character of a struggle of the individual versus the state.

I am persuaded, from all the facts that have come to me, that it would have been possible, if we had functioned as the Lord intended us to function, if we had paid our tithes and our offerings as the Lord intended us to pay them, we might have gone on without one dollar from our federal government. And has it ever occurred to you what a mighty influence we should have exercised for good and for respect and for all of the virtues that we have been taught, and that God has commanded us to exercise and cultivate and practice, if we had just followed along what he has asked us to do?