Life

Life:

the present state of existence

I have honestly never thought of life with that definition. To me, it's always been something that means anything but the present. The past, the future, the chaos that life involves, but never this moment, never life as it presently is. I am excited to think about my moments this week, and to direct each moment towards the life that I want to live. 

The trick is to enjoy life. Don't wish away your days waiting for better ones ahead.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want there to be a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Try a little harder to be a little better.

--President Gordon B. Hinckley

When our children were growing up our home was full of music: Broadway soundtracks, jazz, folk music, religious music, classical music. Music alone can do much to create a rich and positive atmosphere in a home. Even now I move from room to room in our apartment and I can hear music from every corner. What a wonderful world!

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Find joy in your children. Don't overschedule them or yourself. You may not be able to take them on exotic vacations. It doesn't matter. when the day dawns bright and sunny, take an excursion to the canyon or the park. When it's cloudy and wet, read a book together or make something good to eat. Give them time to explore and learn about the feel of the grass and the wiggliness of worms

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Thank you is a wonderful phrase. Use it. It will add stature to your soul. Never let a day go by without saying thank you to someone for something--and especially to your Heavenly Father.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

--Aesop, The Lion and the Mouse

Education, formal education, is a wonderful thing. No matter the class you may choose to take, learn. Learn as if your life depended on it. Perhaps it will. When you open a new textbook, say to yourself, "I want to know what this book has to teach me." Learn the thrill of digging for fossils on the mountainside, or working over a test tube until dark, or getting on the trail of something in the library and searching it down feverishly for hours. Be a real student, an intellectually curious student.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Each of us can ask ourselves each morning, "What can I do to make life happier for someone today?"

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

It's a common saying, but one that gives us heart: "When the going get tough, the tough get going." When trials and tribulations come, we can just hang tight and keep doing our best and things will eventually get better.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Scriptures are needed more and more as the years rush by. They become more meaningful because we have more and more experiences that help us to relate to them.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Be patient in afflictions, for thou shalt have many but endure them, for, lo, I am with thee, even unto the end of thy days.

--D&C 24:8

The trouble with the world and the trouble with you and me is that we don't love each other enough. And if we do, we don't bother to show it, or we don't bother to say it. If the world is to know love, it has to be in your heart and in mine. And the Lord can fill our hearts with love if we will just go to Him.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Try, as husbands and wives, not to be too demanding of one another. There must be a little give and take, a great deal of flexibility, and fierce loyalty to make a happy home.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Each of us has some things we could complain about, but what good would it do? Complaining seldom changes anything.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Everything you are learning now is preparing you for something else.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

We women have a lot to learn about simplifying our lives. We have to decide what is important and then move along at a pace that is comfortable for us. We have to develop the maturity to stop trying to prove something. We have to learn to be content with what we are.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

The family is eternal. Love must be nurtured. It must be spoken. We must put away our pride, our haughtiness, our shyness, our misunderstandings, and with humility say, "I love you. Is there something I can do to help you?" You can never be completely happy under any other circumstances.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

These are the things that I want my life to be about. Family, love, joy, peace, enthusiasm, commitment, patience, service, learning, gratitude, simplicity, music, kindness, improvement, confidence, and ultimately, Christ.

(The majority of the Marjorie Pay Hinckley quotes are excerpts from her book Small and Simple Things.)