Real art, like the wife of an affectionate husband, needs no ornaments. But counterfeit art, like a prostitute, must always be decked out. The cause of production of real art is the artist's inner need to express a feeling that has accumulated...The cause of counterfeit art, as of prostitution, is gain. The consequence of true art is the introduction of a new feeling into the intercourse of life... The consequences of counterfeit art are the perversion of man, pleasure which never satisfies, and the weakening of man's spiritual strength.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., a modern prophet, said over and over again that the Lord would never let one of his Saints who had been faithful in the payment of tithes and offerings go without the necessities of life” (Marion G. Romney, “The Blessings of an Honest Tithe,” New Era, Jan.-Feb. 1982, 45). Members who faithfully pay tithing are promised spiritual blessings as well. “I think it is not well known in the Church that payment of tithing has very little to do with money. Tithing has to do with faith
Understand the place of love in a spiritual life. A powerful and blissful type of love has no conditions, no ownership and no people involved. Be free from fear. Be who you are. That is love.
Spiritual power is the eternal guide, in this life and the life after, for man ranks supreme among all creatures. Led forward by spiritual power, man can reach the summit destined for him by the Great Creator.
Realize your true nature. That is all there is to do. Know yourself as you are - infinite Spirit. That is practical religion. Everything else is impractical, for everything else will perish.
Spiritual practice . . . involves, on the one hand, acting out of concern for others' well-being. On the other, it entails transforming ourselves so that we become more readily disposed to do so.
It must never be forgotten that nothing that is really great in this world has ever been achieved by coalitions, but that it has always been the success of a single victor. Coalition successes bear by the very nature of their origin the germ of future crumbling, in fact of the loss of what has already been achieved. Great, truly world-shaking revolutions of a spiritual nature are not even conceivable and realizable except as the titanic struggles of individual formations, never as enterprises of coalitions.