The course of our lives is not determined by great, awesome decisions. Our direction is set by the little day-to-day choices which chart the track on which we run.

The true purpose of life is the perfection of humanity through individual effort, under the guidance of God's inspiration.

Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed... Life is like an old-time rail journey delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.

Learn how to turn frustration into fascination. You will learn more being fascinated by life than you will by being frustrated.

No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.

This gospel has often been spoken of as a way of life. This however is not quite accurate. Consisting as it does of the principles and ordinances necessary to man's exaltation it is not just a way of life, it is the one and only way of life by which men may accomplish the full purpose of their mortality.

There exists something of a script for this great play, the drama of the ages. It outlines in brief form, at least, what happened in Act I, the Premortal Life. While there is not much detail, it makes clear the purpose of it all. And it reveals enough of the plot to help you figure out what life is all about.

That script, as you should already know, is the scriptures, the revelations. Read them, study them. They tell you “what man is,” why God is “mindful of him,” and why we are made a little lower than the angels” or as Joseph Smith translated it, “a little less than the Gods, and yet “crowned ... with glory and honour” (Psalms 8: 4-5)

The scriptures speak the truth. From them you can learn enough about all three acts to get your bearings and get direction in your life. They reveal that, “Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; that which is Spirit, even the Spirit of truth”, and that “truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come” (D&C 9:23-24): Act I, Act II, and Act III.

You can learn of things as they were, as they actually are, not just as they appear to be, and you can learn of things as they are to come. What happens to you after the curtain comes down on this second act of mortal life, we take on faith. Each of us writes our own ending to Act II.

The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.