Quotations
Emphasis added in all cases.
“O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other.” -- Reinhold Niebuhr, 1932.
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” -- Friedrich Nietzsche, 1886.
““They’re an SJW!” That could mean anything from caring about diversity and social wellness to punching people over assumed bigotry. Politically, labels are useful for rallying people to your cause (and keeping them in line) while broadly discrediting the opposition. It doesn’t encourage detailed discussion or reasoning. It encourages “us vs them” and resistance to change.” -- Dan Shive, 2016 (individually linking the entire chain since Twitter seems to have broken it at several points: X, X, X, 1, 2, 3, X, X, X).
“Whatever the excuse, bullies don’t get to be the good guys.” -- Dan Shive, 2017.
“A genuine first-hand religious experience like this is bound to be a heterodoxy to its witnesses, the prophet appearing as a mere lonely madman. If his doctrine prove contagious enough to spread to any others, it becomes a definite and labeled heresy. But if it then still prove contagious enough to triumph over persecution, it becomes itself an orthodoxy; and when a religion has become an orthodoxy, its day of inwardness is over: the spring is dry; the faithful live at second hand exclusively and stone the prophets in their turn. The new church, in spite of whatever human goodness it may foster, can be henceforth counted on as a staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the spontaneous religious spirit, and to stop all later bubblings of the fountain from which in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration. Unless, indeed, by adopting new movements of the spirit it can make capital out of them and use them for its selfish corporate designs! […] The plain fact is that men’s minds are built, as has been often said, in water-tight compartments. Religious after a fashion, they yet have many other things in them beside their religion, and unholy entanglements and associations inevitably obtain. The basenesses so commonly charged to religion’s account are thus, almost all of them, not chargeable at all to religion proper, but rather to religion’s wicked practical partner, the spirit of corporate dominion. And the bigotries are most of them in their turn chargeable to religion’s wicked intellectual partner, the spirit of dogmatic dominion, the passion for laying down the law in the form of an absolutely closed-in theoretic system. The ecclesiastical spirit in general is the sum of these two spirits of dominion; and I beseech you never to confound the phenomena of mere tribal or corporate psychology which it presents with those manifestations of the purely interior life which are the exclusive object of our study. The baiting of Jews, the hunting of Albigenses and Waldenses, the stoning of Quakers and ducking of Methodists, the murdering of Mormons and the massacring of Armenians, express much rather that aboriginal human neophobia, that pugnacity of which we all share the vestiges, and that inborn hatred of the alien and of eccentric and non-conforming men as aliens, than they express the positive piety of the various perpetrators.” -- William James, 1902
“When you meet someöne…”
“When I was a young man, I served in the Church as a counselor to a wise district president. He was constantly trying to teach me. I remember the advice he once gave to me: “When you meet someone, treat them as if they were in serious trouble, and you will be right more than half the time.” I thought then that he was pessimistic. Now, more than 50 years later, I can see how well he understood the world and life.” -- Henry B. Eyring, 2017.
“Many years ago, I was first counselor to a district president in the eastern United States. More than once, as we were driving to our little branches, he said to me, “Hal, when you meet someone, treat them as if they were in serious trouble, and you will be right more than half the time.” Not only was he right, but I have learned over the years that he was too low in his estimate.” -- Henry B. Eyring, 2018.
Bible
“Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from one person’s envy of another. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind. Fools fold their hands and consume their own flesh. Better is a handful with quiet than two handfuls with toil, and a chasing after wind.” -- Ecclesiastes 4:4–6, NRSV.
“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” -- Matthew 6:34.
D&C sensu latissimo
“Therefore fear not, little flock, do good, let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my Rock, they cannot prevail.” -- through Joseph Smith, 1829; RD&C 6:16a (LD&C 6:34).
“But I beg leave to say unto you, brethren, that ignorance, superstition and bigotry placing itself where it ought not is often-times in the way of the prosperity of this church. Like the torrent of rain from the mountains, that floods the most pure and crystal stream with mire and dirt and filthiness, and obscures everything that was clear before, and all hurls along in one general deluge, but time weathers tide and, notwithstanding we are rolled in for the time being by the mire of the flood, the next surge peradventure as time rolls on may bring us to the fountain as clear as crystal and as pure as snow, while all the filthiness, flood wood and rubbish is left and purged out by the way. How long can rolling waters remain impure? […]” -- through Joseph Smith, 1839; T&C 138:22.
“There are subtle, yet powerful, influences in the world, some even claiming to represent Christ, that seek to divide people and nations to accomplish their destructive aims. That which seeks to harden one human heart against another by constructing walls of fear and prejudice is not of God. Be especially alert to these influences, lest they divide you or divert you from the mission to which you are called. ⸿ God, the Eternal Creator, weeps for the poor, displaced, mistreated, and diseased of the world because of their unnecessary suffering. Such conditions are not God’s will. Open your ears to hear the pleading of mothers and fathers in all nations who desperately seek a future of hope for their children. Do not turn away from them. For in their welfare resides your welfare.” -- through Stephen Veazey, 2007; RD&C 163:3b–4a.
