M. Russell Ballard Quotes

I find that when I put my spiritual life first, the rest of my life is easy. When I put my career first, that's when I have problems.

You know, it's a different world now, but to skip ahead and really answer your question, only in the last five years did I find what I call holy maturity, finding the balance, finding the right person in my life so that I could live a normal life.

I always had a larger view. I'm interested in real life - my family, my friends. I have tried never to define myself by my success, whatever that is. My happiness is way beyond roles and awards.

I look at being older and gaining wisdom. I've learned to stay fit and healthy. I accept my body, my life, and my circumstances.

may I be I is the only prayer--not may I be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong.

As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others -- and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer.

The higher a man is in grace, the lower he will be in his own esteem.

God cannot be realizxd if there is the slightest trace of pride.

Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint you will not put yourself on a pedestal.

We must be willing to be completely ordinary people, which means accepting ourselves as we are without trying to become greater, purer, more spiritual, more insightful. If we can accept our imperfections as they are, quite ordinarily, then we can use them as part of the path. But if we try to get rid of our imperfections, then they will be enemies, obstacles on the road to our ‘self-improvement’.

In judging our progress as individuals we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one's social position, influence and popularity, wealth and standard of education... But internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one's development as a human being. Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others - qualities which are within easy reach of every soul - are the foundation of one's spiritual life.

Do not seek so anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation. Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.

The root of all difficulties is a lack of the sense of the Presence of God.

We need prayer to understand God's love for us. If we really mean to pray and want to pray we must be ready to do it now. These are only the first steps towards prayer but if we never make the first step with determination, we will not reach the last one: the presence of God

Stopping the endless pursuit of getting somewhere else is the perhaps most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit.

God didn’t want me to do more for Him. He wanted me to be more with Him.

Looking foolish does the spirit good.

The healthiest and holiest people are the people who laugh at themselves the most. Failure helps us take God more seriously and ourselves less seriously.

I am content in my later years. I have kept my good humor and take neither myself nor the next person seriously.

Get low; grace will meet you there.

The most holy and necessary practice in our spiritual life is the presence of God. That means finding constant pleasure in His divine company, speaking humbly and lovingly with him in all seasons, at every moment, without limiting the conversation in any way.

The victorious Christian neither exalts nor downgrades himself. His interests have shifted from self to Christ.

Instead of focusing on that unappeasable person, refocus on Jesus, who accepts you unconditionally.

Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.