110+ Neal A. Maxwell Quotes On Trials, Death And Adversity

Neal A. Maxwell was an American Clergyman who served in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1981 until his death in 2004. He was known for his spiritual insight and his ability to explain complex doctrinal principles in a simple, yet profound way. He was an advocate for the poor and needy, and encouraged people to develop Christlike attributes in their lives. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Neal A. Maxwell on trials, death, adversity.

Top 10 Neal A. Maxwell Quotes

1. God does not begin by asking us about our ability, but only about our availability, and if we then prove our dependability, he will increase our capability.
2. The soul is like a violin string: it makes music only when it is stretched.
3. The more seriously we work on our own imperfections, the less we are judgemental of the imperfections of others.
4. We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count.
5. No love is ever wasted. Its worth does not lie in reciprocity.
6. The submission of one's will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God's altar. The many other things we 'give' are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us.
7. We should not assume; however, that just because something is unexplainable by us, it is unexplainable.
8. Trials and tribulations tend to squeeze the artificiality out of us, leaving the essence of what we really are and clarifying what we really yearn for.
9. When we rejoice in beautiful scenery, great art, and great music, it is but the flexing of instincts acquired in another place and another time.
10. The winds of tribulation, which blow out some men's candles of commitment, only fan the fires of faith of others.

Neal A. Maxwell Short Quotes

• The hardest work you and I will ever do is to put off our selfishness. It is heavy lifting!
• Never give up what you want most for what you want today.
• How could there be refining fires without our enduring some heat?
• On the straight and narrow path, there are simply no corners to be cut.
• Listening is one of the forms of love.
• Consecration thus constitutes the only unconditional surrender which is also a total victory!
• Love, patience, and meekness can be just as contagious as rudeness and crudeness.
• If the kingdom of God is not first, it doesn't matter what's second.
• Coming unto the Lord is not a negotiation, but a surrender.
• In Gospel grammar, death is not an exclamation point, merely a comma.

Neal A. Maxwell Quotes About Adversity

For the faithful, our finest hours are sometimes during or just following our darkest hours. — Neal A. Maxwell

Daily hope is vital, since the ‘Winter Quarters’ of our lives are not immediately adjacent to our promised land either. An arduous trek still awaits, but hope spurs weary disciples on. — Neal A. Maxwell

The great challenge is to refuse to let the bad things that happen to us do bad things to us. That is the crucial difference between adversity and tragedy. — Neal A. Maxwell

At the center of our agency is our freedom to form a healthy attitude toward whatever circumstances we are placed in! — Neal A. Maxwell

Regarding trials, including of our faith and patience, there are no exemptions-only variations. — Neal A. Maxwell

All crosses are easier to carry when we keep moving. — Neal A. Maxwell

The enlarging of the soul requires not only some remodeling, but some excavating. — Neal A. Maxwell

Neal A. Maxwell Quotes About Service

I know the celestial criteria measure service, not status; the use of our talents, not the relative size of our talent inventories. I know that Church membership is not passive security but continuing opportunity. — Neal A. Maxwell

I know sanctification comes not with any particular calling, but with genuine acts of service, often for which there is no specific calling. — Neal A. Maxwell

It's service, not status, that counts. — Neal A. Maxwell

Neal A. Maxwell Quotes About Inspirational

It is extremely important for you to believe in yourselves, not only for what you are now, but for what you have the power to become. — Neal A. Maxwell

Perfect love is perfectly patient. — Neal A. Maxwell

Though we have rightly applauded our ancestors for their spiritual achievements ... those of us who prevail today will have done no small thing. — Neal A. Maxwell

Don't fear, just live right. — Neal A. Maxwell

Do not write a check with your tongue that your actions cannot cash. — Neal A. Maxwell

Neal A. Maxwell Quotes About Carried

We, more than others, should carry jumper and tow cables not only in our cars, but also in our hearts, by which means we can send the needed boost or charge of encouragement or the added momentum to mortal neighbors. — Neal A. Maxwell

Patience permits us to cling to our faith in the Lord when we are tossed about by suffering as if by surf. When the undertow grasps us we will realize that we are somehow being carried forward even as we tumble. We are actually being -helped even as we cry for help. — Neal A. Maxwell

Patient endurance permits us to cling to our faith in the Lord and our faith in His timing when we are being tossed about by the surf of circumstance. Even when a seeming undertow grasps us, somehow, in the tumbling, we are being carried forward, though battered and bruised. — Neal A. Maxwell

Neal A. Maxwell Quotes About Helped

Our little pebble of poor performance helps to start, or to sustain, an avalanche. — Neal A. Maxwell

A father who finds it difficult to express his love vocally for his children may need, at first, to be humbly obedient in holding family home evenings in order to help him to discover, or to increase, his appreciation for his children. Next can come to him the courage to say I love you to each one. — Neal A. Maxwell

We must not fail, individually, for if we fail, we fail twice - for ourselves and for those who could have been helped, if we had done our duty. — Neal A. Maxwell

Patience helps us to view imperfections in others more generously to the end that we may learn to be more wise than they have been. — Neal A. Maxwell

If we spent as much time lifting our children as we do criticizing them, how effectively we could help them to see themselves in a more positive light! — Neal A. Maxwell

Looking for honest ways to lift one another would . . . be more beneficial to our own self-esteem, for we would see more good in ourselves. We would cease to be so critical of our weaknesses and would find ways to allow our weaknesses to become strengths with God's help. — Neal A. Maxwell

Neal A. Maxwell Famous Quotes And Sayings

How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!' — Neal A. Maxwell

Time is clearly not our natural dimension. Thus it is that we are never really at home in time. Alternately, we find ourselves wishing to hasten the passage of time or to hold back the dawn. We can do neither, of course, but whereas the fish is at home in water, we are clearly not at home in time--because we belong to eternity. — Neal A. Maxwell

A basic cause of murmuring is that too many of us seem to expect that life will flow ever smoothly, featuring an unbroken chain of green lights with empty parking places just in front of our destinations!. — Neal A. Maxwell

You rock a sobbing child without wondering if today's world is passing you by, because you know you hold tomorrow tightly in your arms. — Neal A. Maxwell

God, as a loving Father, will stretch our souls at times. The soul is like a violin string: it makes music only when it is stretched. . . . God will tutor us by trying us because He loves us, not because of indifference! — Neal A. Maxwell

When great individuals move so marvelously along the straight and narrow path, it is unseemly of us to call attention to the fact that one of their shoelaces is untied as they make the journey. — Neal A. Maxwell

In contrast to the path of selfishness, there is no room for road rage on the straight and narrow way. — Neal A. Maxwell

We cannot repent for someone else. But we can forgive someone else, refusing to hold hostage those whom the Lord seeks to set free! — Neal A. Maxwell

Our afflictions brothers and sisters often will not be extinguished, they will be dwarfed and swallowed up in the joy of Christ. That’s how we overcome, most of the time. It’s not their elimination, but the placing of them in that larger context. — Neal A. Maxwell

The Lord doesn't ask about your ability, only your availability; and, if you prove your dependability, the Lord will increase your capability. — Neal A. Maxwell

God's extraordinary work is most often done by ordinary people in the seeming obscurity of a home and family. — Neal A. Maxwell

Do not let the future be held hostage by the past — Neal A. Maxwell

The imperfections of others never release us from the need to work on our own shortcomings. — Neal A. Maxwell

Real hope is much more than wishful musing. It stiffens, not slackens, the spiritual spine. — Neal A. Maxwell

It is one of the ironies of religious history that many mortals err in their understanding of the nature of God and end up rejecting not the real God but their own erroneous and stereotypical image of God. Frequently this is because they have thought of God solely in terms of thunderings at Sinai without pondering substance. . . . — Neal A. Maxwell

Ironically, as some people become harder, they use softer words to describe dark deeds. This, too, is part of being sedated by secularism. Needless abortion, for instance, is a "reproductive health procedure, . . ." "Illegitimacy" gives way to the wholly sanitized words "non-marital birth" or "alternative parenting." — Neal A. Maxwell

Just as doubt, despair, and desensitization go together, so do faith, hope, and charity. The latter, however, must be carefully and constantly nurtured, whereas despair, like dandelions, needs so little encouragement to sprout and spread. Despair comes so naturally to the natural man! — Neal A. Maxwell

When we are unduly impatient with an omniscient God's timing, we really are suggesting that we know what's best. Strange isn't it-we who wear wrist watches seek to counsel Him who oversees cosmic clocks and calendars. — Neal A. Maxwell

Ironically, brothers and sisters, the natural man who is so very selfish in so many ordinary ways is strangely unselfish in that he reaches for too few of the things that bring real joy. He settles for a mess of pottage instead of eternal joy. — Neal A. Maxwell

Your task is to conquer yourselves, not ships, lands and castles. This battle is the one in which you especially are to 'come off conqueror.' It is fought every day. In fact, it is a continuing process which commenced a long, long time ago. — Neal A. Maxwell

Discouragement is not the absence of adequacy but the absence of courage. — Neal A. Maxwell

We cannot improve the world if we are conformed to the world. — Neal A. Maxwell

Life is an 'open-book' exam, but the problem is that most of the students don't have the 'book', or refuse to open it-a fact that ought to spur us on as Church members to share the gospel more widely so that life would be meaningful for more people. — Neal A. Maxwell

In the economy of Heaven, God does not send thunder if a still, small voice is enough, or a prophet if a priest can do the job. — Neal A. Maxwell

In one degree or another we all struggle with selfishness. Since it is so common, why worry about selfishness anyway? Because selfishness is really self-destruction in slow motion. — Neal A. Maxwell

A few little flowers will spring up briefly in the dry gulley through which torrents of water pass occasionally. But it is steady streams that bring thick and needed crops. In the agriculture of the soul that has to do with nurturing attributes, flash floods are no substitute for regular irrigation. — Neal A. Maxwell

I am as I am, And so is a stone; Them that don't like me, Must leave me alone. — Neal A. Maxwell

C. S. Lewis pointed out that some people are angry with God for His not existing, and others for His existing but for failing to do as mortals would have Him do. Instead of such childishness, we are urged to know God and to learn of His attributes. — Neal A. Maxwell

It is only by yielding to God that we can begin to realize His will for us. And if we truly trust God, why not yield to His loving omniscience? After all, He knows us and our possibilities much better than do we. — Neal A. Maxwell

Although goal setting can clearly be overdone, only a few people are overly involved with goals and goal setting; most people do far too little goal setting, including the reflecting that precedes the setting of such goals. Too many marriages have financial goals but not other explicit goals. Yet the gospel is certainly goal-oriented. — Neal A. Maxwell

Meekness, the subtraction of self, reduces the multiplication of words. — Neal A. Maxwell

Meanwhile, spiritual submissiveness brings about the wiser use of our time, talents, and gifts as compared with our laboring diligently but conditionally to establish our own righteousness instead of the Lord's (D&C 1:16). After all, Lucifer was willing to work very hard, but conditionally in his own way and for his own purposes. — Neal A. Maxwell

A vague goal is no goal at all. The Ten Commandments wouldn't be very impressive, for instance, if they weren't specific, but simply were couched in a phraseology such as 'thou shalt not be a bad person. — Neal A. Maxwell

One simply cannot come to a cause like the kingdom of God, with its celestial concepts, and not appreciate and identify with what Ammon said: "Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel." — Neal A. Maxwell

If the nearly one-and-a-half million babies aborted in America each year could, somehow, vote, chameleon candidates would find fresh reason to be concerned about abortion, whereas now they are unconcerned. — Neal A. Maxwell

I testify that He is utterly incomparable in what He is, what He knows, what He has accomplished and what He has experienced. Yet, movingly, He calls us His Friends — Neal A. Maxwell

Sometimes we are so busy being the hammer or the anvil, that we forget who really needs the shaping. — Neal A. Maxwell

When we don't like to face up to hard facts, we use soft words. We do not speak about killing a baby within the womb, but about "termination of potential life." Words are often multiplied to try to cover dark deeds. — Neal A. Maxwell

It is so easy to be confrontive without being informative; indignant without being intelligent; impulsive without being insightful. — Neal A. Maxwell

Man can learn self-discipline without becoming ascetic; he can be wise without waiting to be old; he can be influential without waiting for status. Man can sharpen his ability to distinguish between matters of principle and matters of preference, but only if we have a wise interplay between time and truth, between minutes and morality. — Neal A. Maxwell

When at length we tire of putting people down, this self-inflicted fatigue can give way to the invigorating calisthenics of lifting people up. — Neal A. Maxwell

Therefore, as we strive to become as the Father is and as Jesus is, we are to become more gracious and merciful, more kind and considerate. Even more, we are to do this in a world which does little to encourage such qualities of character. — Neal A. Maxwell

We may never become accustomed to untrue and unjust criticism of us but we ought not to be immobilized by it. — Neal A. Maxwell

In a very real sense, all we need to know is that God knows all. — Neal A. Maxwell

The gross size of our talent inventories is less important than the net use of our talents? — Neal A. Maxwell

Endurance involves much more than putting up with a situation; Patient Endurance is more than pacing up and down within the cell of circumstance. True Enduring represents not merely the passage of time, . . . but the Passage of Soul. — Neal A. Maxwell

A new calling can beckon us away from comfortable routine and from competencies already acquired. — Neal A. Maxwell

We are so busy constantly checking our own temperatures, we fail to notice the burning fevers of others. — Neal A. Maxwell

The mortal experience . . . is not like a college course which we can passively audit. Instead, we are taking life's course for credit and there are no summers off - not even semester breaks. — Neal A. Maxwell

God will facilitate, but He will not force. — Neal A. Maxwell

If we are not serving Jesus, and if he is not in our thoughts and hearts, then the things of the world will draw us instead to them! Moreover, the things of the world need not be sinister in order to be diverting and consuming. — Neal A. Maxwell

Patience stoutly resists pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing! — Neal A. Maxwell

How good you and I get at repenting will determine how good life is. — Neal A. Maxwell

Conscience warns us not to sink our cleats too deeply in mortal turf, which is so dangerously artificial. — Neal A. Maxwell

When one comes to know God and His Son Jesus Christ through the scriptures, the Spirit, and personal revelation, it is impossible to feel anything other than overwhelmed by the attributes so perfectly developed in them and so tentatively and superficially developed in oneself. Even so, we are told to strive to become like them. — Neal A. Maxwell

Pure religion is having the courage to do what is right and let the consequence follow. — Neal A. Maxwell

We are vulnerable if we can be taken by a wave of emotion, invaded by an invidious impulse, roughed up by resentment, or engulfed by a surge of selfishness. — Neal A. Maxwell

How myopic it is to view His ministry as all crucifixion and no resurrection! — Neal A. Maxwell

I thank the Savior personally; for bearing all which I added to His hemorrhaging at every pore for all humanity in Gethsemane. I thank Him for bearing what I added to the decibels of His piercing soul cry atop Calvary. — Neal A. Maxwell

Personal, spiritual symmetry emerges only from the shaping of prolonged obedience. Twigs are bent, not snapped into shape. — Neal A. Maxwell

If we knew how often the obedience of others is affected by our own, and how often our stepping forth soon brings forth a whole platton of helpers, and how often our speaking forth soon creates a chorus - we would be even more ashamed of our slackess and our silence. — Neal A. Maxwell

Those who do too much for their children will soon find they can do nothing with their children. So many children have been so much done for they are almost done in. — Neal A. Maxwell

The laughter of the world is merely loneliness pathetically trying to reassure itself. — Neal A. Maxwell

Patience is...clearly not fatalistic, shoulder-shrugging resignation. It is the acceptance of a divine rhythm to life; it is obedience prolonged. Patience stoutly resists pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing. — Neal A. Maxwell

Trying to observe the slow shift from self-centeredness to empathy is like trying to watch grass grow. — Neal A. Maxwell

Brigham Young observed, "Man's machinery makes things alike" (JD 9:370), while God gives to seemingly like individuals pleasing differences. Secularism is no friend of righteous individuality. — Neal A. Maxwell

Pray for me to learn quickly what I need to learn. — Neal A. Maxwell

For some Church members the Book of Mormon remains unread. Others use it occasionally as if it were merely a handy book of quotations. Still others accept and read it but do not really explore and ponder it. The book is to be feasted upon, not nibbled (see 2 Nephi 31:20). — Neal A. Maxwell

I fear that, as conditions worsen, many will react to the failures of too much government by calling for even more government. Then there will be more and more lifeboats launched because fewer and fewer citizens know how to swim. Unlike some pendulums, political pendulums to not swing back automatically; they must be pushed. History is full of instances when people have waited in vain for pendulums to swing back. — Neal A. Maxwell

It is possible to know when, at least basically, we please God. In fact, Joseph Smith taught that one of the conditions of genuine faith is to have "an actual knowledge that the course of life which [one] is pursuing is according to [God's] will." — Neal A. Maxwell

The harrowing of the soul can be like the harrowing of the soil; to increase the yield, things are turned upside down. — Neal A. Maxwell

Obviously, family values mirror our personal priorities. Given the gravity of current conditions, would parents be willing to give up just one outside thing, giving that time and talent instead to the family. — Neal A. Maxwell

Those who turn against the Church do so to play to their own private gallery, but when, one day, the applause has died down and the cheering has stopped, they will face a smaller audience, the judgment bar of God. — Neal A. Maxwell

The overwhelming joy of conversion or a new calling is often followed by feelings of being overwhelmed with duties and doctrines. The first joyous feelings are real and give one much-needed initial momentum. But the genuine exhilaration is soon followed by the need to perspire and to pedal. — Neal A. Maxwell

I assume, gladly, that in the allocation to America of remarkable leaders like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln, the Lord was just as careful. After all, if you've got only one Abraham Lincoln, you'd better put him in that point in history when he's most needed-much as some of us might like to have him now. — Neal A. Maxwell

Though we have rightly applauded our ancestors for their spiritual achievements (and do not and must not discount them now), those of us who prevail today will have done no small thing. The special spirits who have been reserved to live in this time of challenges and who overcome will one day be praised for their stamina by those who pulled handcarts. — Neal A. Maxwell

In racing marathons, one does not see the dropouts make fun of those who continue; failed runners actually cheer on those who continue the race, wishing they were still in it. Not so with the marathon of discipleship in which some dropouts then make fun of the spiritual enterprise of which they were so recently a part! — Neal A. Maxwell

While most of our suffering is self- inflicted, some is caused by or permitted by God. This sobering reality calls for deep submissiveness, especially when God does not remove the cup from us. In such circumstances, when reminded about the premortal shouting for joy as this life's plan was unfolded (Job 38:7), we can perhaps be pardoned if, in some moments, we wonder what all the shouting was about. — Neal A. Maxwell

Those few members who desert the cause are abandoning an oasis to search for water in the desert. — Neal A. Maxwell

The scriptures offer us so many doctrinal diamonds. And when the light of the Spirit plays upon their several facets, they sparkle with celestial sense and illuminate the path we are to follow. — Neal A. Maxwell

Life Lessons by Neal A. Maxwell

1. Neal A. Maxwell taught that life is a test of faith and that we should strive to be better each day. He reminded us that we should be humble and patient in our service to the Lord, and that we should always look to Him for guidance and strength.
2. He also encouraged us to be more compassionate and understanding of others, and to be willing to forgive and accept those who have wronged us. He believed that we should be willing to sacrifice our own desires for the benefit of others.
3. Finally, Maxwell taught that we should never give up hope, no matter how difficult life may seem. He believed that we should strive to be better people and to make the world a better place.