- “I suppose no book I have read in recent months has alarmed me more than a work entitled Fatherless America. In this study the author speaks of “fatherlessness” as “the most harmful demographic trend of this generation,” the leading cause of damage to children. It is, he is convinced, the engine driving our most urgent social problems, from poverty to crime to adolescent pregnancy to child abuse to domestic violence. Among the principal social issues of our time is the flight of fathers from their children’s lives.” Broken Things to Mend (Jeffrey R. Holland) Kindle Loc. 319-23
- “After she lost her husband in the martyrdom at Nauvoo and made her way west with five fatherless children, Mary Fielding Smith continued in her poverty to pay tithing. When someone at the tithing office inappropriately suggested one day that she should not contribute a tenth of the only potatoes she had been able to raise that year, she cried out to the man, “William, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Would you deny me a blessing? If I did not pay my tithing, I should expect the Lord to withhold His blessings from me. I pay my tithing, not only because it is a law of God, but because I expect a blessing by doing it. [I need a blessing.] By keeping this and other laws, I expect to . . . be able to provide for my family.”” Broken Things to Mend (Jeffrey R. Holland) Kindle Loc. 1166-71
- “We live in a world of both incredible wealth and startling poverty. There are more wealthy Americans than wealthy individuals from any other industrialized country. Thus, the moral, social, and economic responsibility of this country’s private sector to give of its excessive wealth to those in great need continues to intensify. While foundations and corporations get much of the visibility and recognition for their charitable giving benevolence, the vast majority, over 80%, of giving comes from individuals.” Remarks to The 2008 Annual Membership Meeting Society of Financial Service Professionals, Bethesda Country Club. Bill Walace, CLU®, ChFC® JUNE 13, 2008
- “Our family tradition of giving began before there was any wealth at all,” said one trustee. Said another: “The Depression remained a strong influence on my parents, and they knew what it was like to give when you weren’t sure you had enough for yourself. Why would we not give out of abundance?” NCFP, “The Value of Family in Philanthropy
- “October 23rd, 1994 – Sunday. Puyo, Ecuador… Ecuador is sweet. It’s pretty. It’s a ghetto in the jungle. The people here are normal but don’t realize what it’s like to live good. But they’re happy. One thing I remember was today a boy with ragged clothes & who lives in a wood shack was praying for the poor. Kind of makes you think. To me, they’re poor but they don’t think so.” – Clinton Brown Missionary Journal
- “A Brookings Institution white paper finds 38 million U.S. households are living paycheck to paycheck; two-thirds of those aren’t poor – but their money is locked up in houses, cars and retirement accounts.” – Brookings Institution White Paper
- “President Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994), a cabinet member under U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, taught this most important distinction: “The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.” Religion and Government, Elder Wilford W. Andersen Of the Seventy