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Maybe edit the OP to add the blog address so it’s easy to find. Hi Ann and Daeruin, Here you go:
http://ldsthoughtfulquotes.blogspot.com If you’re viewing it on a mobile device you won’t be able to see the ‘tag cloud’ of topics (unless you switch to desktop view). I’ve copied them all into a blog post so you don’t have to,
click hereI’ve also put these links at the top of the OP for easy future access. I tend to open the page the moment we start Sunday School and it stays open until Priesthood finishes.
This quote will perhaps be a week late for most of you if you had this lesson yesterday. On the topic of the flood, Elder John A. Widstoe (a Norwegian born immigrant) wrote:
Quote:“It is doubtful whether the water in the sky and all the oceans would suffice to cover the earth so completely…
The fact remains that the exact nature of the flood is not known. We set up assumptions, based upon our best knowledge, but can go no further. We should remember that when inspired writers deal with historical incidents they relate that which they have seen or that which may have been told them, unless indeed the past is opened to them by revelation.
The details in the story of the flood are undoubtedly drawn from the experiences of the writer. Under a downpour of rain, likened to the opening of the heavens, a destructive torrent twenty-six feet deep or deeper would easily be formed. The writer of Genesis made a faithful report of the facts known to him concerning the flood. In other localities the depth of the water might have been more or less. In fact, the details of the flood are not known to us”
Elder John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations. Salt Lake City, 1943, 109-112
This is a more detailed repeat of the above quote, taken from June 1940 Improvement Era (the church’s precursor to the Ensign): Quote:The suggestion has been made that the flood filled every hollow and valley until the earth was a great sphere of water, covering the highest mountain peaks twenty-six feet deep. Mount Ararat, seventeen thousand feet high, “upon the mountains” of which the ark rested, would according to this view have been completely under water. It is doubtful whether the water in the sky and all the oceans would suffice to cover the earth so completely.
Another suggestion is that the earth at that time was so flat that a depth of water of twenty-six feet would cover the highest hill. There is no existing evidence of this supposition; and Mount Ararat did exist then according to the record.
It has also been suggested that a blanket of water twenty-six feet thick lay up and down the sides of every hill, mountain and valley. This would seem to be in defiance of the law of gravity, though under a long continued, furious rainfall such a layer, not too thick, might roll down every slope.
The fact remains that the exact nature of the flood is not known. We set up assumptions, based upon our best knowledge, but can go no further. We should remember that when inspired writers deal with historical incidents they relate that which they have seen or that which may have been told them, unless indeed the past is opened to them by revelation.
The details in the story of the flood are undoubtedly drawn from the experiences of the writer. Under a downpour of rain, likened to the opening of the heavens, a destructive torrent twenty-six feet deep or deeper would easily be formed. The writer of Genesis made a faithful report of the facts known to him concerning the flood. In other localities the depth of the water might have been more or less. In fact, the details of the flood are not known to us.
http://archive.org/stream/improvementera4306unse/improvementera4306unse_djvu.txt Quote:What happens if you try to paddle a boat using only one oar? You go around and around in circles. If you paddle hard, you go fast. If you paddle slowly, you turn gently. But you still just go around in circles. It’s the same with trying to make study replace faith or trying to exercise faith but without study. We can often find ourselves just going around in circles. I think that the Holy Ghost cannot give us some answers until we are actively seeking knowledge.
Think what great progress has been made in medicine by those who use both oars in their training. For example, Elder Russell M. Nelson, a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, used both oars in his former profession as a heart surgeon. With the trained skills of his hands, the knowledge stored in his mind from his study and his experience, and the faith in his heart that he would be sustained by the Holy Ghost as he operated, he has performed modern miracles that have spared the lives and prolonged the vigor and energy of so many people, including Presidents of the Church and many General Authorities. If he had relied only on faith, he still would have been a great man, but he would not have been a great surgeon. If he had relied only on study, he might have been a great surgeon, but I think there are many assignments that the Lord would not have entrusted to him.
It is the same with us. Each woman needs to develop both gifts, the gift of faith and the gift of study, to the utmost of her capacity. We need to exercise both study and faith to become self-reliant. We need to understand their relationship to each other and to us.
CHIEKO N. OKAZAKIFirst Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/1994/10/rowing-your-boat?lang=eng#watch=video A bit technical, but in case you have people dismiss the new essays (race and the priesthood/translation etc) as just some unknown article on the website: Quote:The church’s First Presidency approves each of the enhanced topic pages.
“The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve both have been very supportive of this process,” Elder Snow said. “I think they sense the need to provide accurate information to our members to counter a lot of sensationalism that tends to come about online or on the Internet over some of these historical topics.”
“We want them to be able to go to a place where they can read accurate information and be able to seek to understand those historical chapters in the context of time and place and understand these answers have been approved by the presiding Brethren of the church. I think that will give many of our members confidence that they can rely on those answers.”
Quoting:
Elder Paul B. Pieper, executive director of the Priesthood Department
and
Elder Steven E. Snow, Church Historian
I remember this talk first time round and being impressed: Quote:
And third, if neighbors become testy or frustrated because of some disagreement with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or with some law we support for moral reasons, please don’t suggest to them—even in a humorous way—that they consider moving someplace else. I cannot comprehend how any member of our Church can even think such a thing! Our pioneer ancestors were driven from place to place by uninformed and intolerant neighbors. They experienced extraordinary hardship and persecution because they thought, acted, and believed differently from others. If our history teaches us nothing else, it should teach us to respect the rights of all people to peacefully coexist with one another.
Elder Ballard, Oct 2001
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2001/10/doctrine-of-inclusion?lang=eng No extra information on this. Hoping we get a bit more of the interview later Quote:
The church will benefit as “men’s vision of the capacity of women becomes more complete,” as Sister Linda K. Burton, president of the Relief Society, the church’s auxiliary for adult women, put it.
Russell M Nelson, Oct 2002 Quote:
Because of the long history of hostility upon the earth, many feel that peace is beyond hope. I disagree. Peace is possible. We can learn to love our fellow human beings throughout the world. Whether they be Jewish, Islamic, or fellow Christians, whether Hindu, Buddhist, or other, we can live together with mutual admiration and respect, without forsaking our religious convictions. Things we have in common are greater than are our differences. Peace is a prime priority that pleads for our pursuit.
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2002/10/blessed-are-the-peacemakers?lang=eng Oops, delete duplicate I know it’s a bit ironic, almost cheating, to quote from such a dreadful article, but it was a chink of light in an otherwise painful reading experience: Quote:Through prayer to our Heavenly Father each of us can have the assurance that the course we choose has his divine approval.
PRESIDENT N. ELDON TANNER
Ensign, August 1979
From Elder Uchtdorf’s symposium address. Once there’s a full transcript I’ll add an official source: Quote:Isn’t it a remarkable feeling to belong to a Church that not only embraces truth—no matter the source—but that teaches there is much more to come! That God “will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.”
As a result, we are humble about the truth we have. We understand our knowledge is a work in progress, that the leaf we have before us is simply one microscopic snapshot—part of an infinitely vast forest of fascinating knowledge.
Our little world—our small section of experience—may be an accurate and true reflection of our reality. But, it is only an infinitesimal atom in the vast universe of what we eventually will know.
Quote:A man and his wife learn to be one by using their similarities to understand each other and their differences to complement each other in serving one another and those around them. In the same way,
we can unite with those who do not accept our doctrine but share our desire to bless the children of our Heavenly Father. We can become peacemakers, worthy to be called blessed and the children of God (see Matthew 5:9).
(Lesson 2: Developing Unity in Marriage)
Thanks Unknown 
This one is bending the rules a little as it’s not from an LDS source, nor a GA.
Hugh Nibley said in 1973,
Quote:“The worst sinners, according to Jesus, are not the harlots and publicans, but the religious leaders with their insistence on proper dress and grooming, their careful observance of all the rules, their precious concern for status symbols, their strict legality, their pious patriotism … the haircut becomes the test of virtue in a world where Satan deceives and rules by appearances.”
Waterman, Brian and Kagel, Brian Kagel. The Lord’s University: Freedom and Authority at BYU. Signature Books. 1998. ISBN 1-56085-117-1
A bit heavy handed, but what else do you expect from Brigham Young: Quote:When the books are opened, out of which the human family are to be judged, how disappointed the professedly sanctified, long-faced hypocrites and smooth-toned pharisees will be, when the publicans and harlots enter into the kingdom of heaven before them; people that appeared to be full of evil, but the Lord says they never designed to do wrong; the Devil had power over them, and they suffered in their mortal state a thousand times more than you poor, miserable, canting, cheating, snivelling, hypocritical pharisees; you were dressed in purple and fine linen, and bound burdens upon your weaker brethren that you would not so much as help to lift with your little fingers. Did you ever go without food, suffer with tooth-ache, sore eyes, rheumatism, or the chills and fever? You have fared sumptuously all your days and you condemned to an everlasting hell these poor harlots and publicans who never designed an evil. Are you not guilty of committing an evil with that poor harlot? Yes, and you will be damned while she will be saved.
Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, May 24, 1863, reported by G. D. Watt on pp170-178 of volume 10 of the Journal of Discourses.
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