Biography at a glance
- Born: July 6, 1926, in Salt Lake City, Utah
- Died: July 21, 2004, in Salt Lake City
- Church service: Assistant to the Twelve beginning in 1974; member of the Presidency of the Seventy; apostle beginning in 1981
- Other work: University administrator, writer, and teacher
- Recurring themes: Discipleship, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, prayer, and endurance
Education and public service
Maxwell’s path to Church leadership included military service, higher education, and work in university administration. His experience as a teacher and writer became part of the distinctive way he addressed Church audiences: closely reasoned ideas expressed in memorable language. The BYU Religious Studies Center’s account traces his early years and professional work.
Apostle and teacher
Maxwell became an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1974, served in the Seventy, and was called to the Twelve in 1981. His ministry repeatedly turned to the practical demands of following Christ: choosing faith, accepting correction, and serving others without seeking attention. The Church’s biographical timeline records the dates of his Church assignments, while BYU Speeches offers many of his addresses in fuller context.
Illness and enduring witness
After a leukemia diagnosis, Maxwell continued to teach and serve. His public reflections on suffering carried the weight of that experience, without reducing faith to a promise that trials would disappear. He died in 2004. The Church’s account of his life and service describes his later years and the breadth of his work.
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Sources and further reading
Quotes by Neal A. Maxwell
100 quotes
“Alas, in our age, some arrogantly believe that if they cannot comprehend something, then God cannot comprehend it either.”
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“Whether young or old, we need to be good friends, but also to pick our friends carefully. By choosing the Lord first, choosing one’s friends becomes easier and much safer. Consider the contrasting friendships in the city of Enoch compared to peers in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah! The citizens of the city of Enoch chose Jesus and a way of life, then became everlasting friends. So much depends on whom and what we seek first.”
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“Long sufferers are really something because they think the errant and unrepentant are really something – something worth saving.”
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“What the secularists are increasingly demanding, in their disingenuous way, is that religious people, when they act politically, act only on secularist grounds. They are trying to equate acting on religion with establishing religion. And—I repeat—the consequence of such logic is really to establish secularism.”
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“The highest challenge we have in mortality is to use our free agency well, making right choices in the interplay of time and talents. Time is one of the blessings we are given. Generally speaking, it is we who let ourselves get fragmented too much. It is the result of not establishing (and then persisting in) certain priorities in our life. I am not denying the reality of the challenge you put, but neither do I think it is unmanageable.”
Deposition of a Disciple, 68
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
In the same vein, God’s second commandment, love thy neighbor, clearly leaves no room for racism.
"Deny Yourselves of All Ungodliness”
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“Our faith in God must be strong, therefore, not only in behalf of ourselves and our own trials, but also upon seeing those human conditions involving human wickedness which are truly wrenching but which are permitted by God because of God-given but morally misused agency.”
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“Discouragement is not the absence of adequacy but that absence of courage.”
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“One scientist, who probably doesn’t believe in divine design, nevertheless noted that ‘As we look out into the universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the universe must in some sense have known we were coming.”
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“The costs of discipleship cannot be paid at wholesale rates nor in one lump sum.”
Men and Women of Christ, p. 24
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“Many in the world hold back from making the ‘leap of faith’ because they have already jumped to some other conclusions — often the conclusions of Korihor, which are: God never was nor ever will be; there is not a redeeming Christ; man cannot know the future; man cannot know of that which he cannot see; whatsoever a man does is no crime; and death is the end. (See Alma 30:13-18.) The number of modern-day adherents to the Korihor conclusions will grow.”
“The Inexhaustible Gospel,” Ensign, April 1993, p. 71
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“True faith is not to be brought about by overwhelming and intimidating intervention from God”
“Not My Will, But Thine.” Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988.
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“We live and teach amid a wide variety of individual personalities, experiences, cultures, languages, interests, and needs. Only the Spirit can compensate fully for such differences.”
That Ye May Believe (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1992), 39.
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“If we are serious about our discipleship, Jesus will eventually request each of us to do those very things which are most difficult for us to do.”
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“This is a gospel of great expectations, but God’s grace is sufficient for each of us if we remember that there are no instant Christians.”
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“In the physical eye, an astigmatism occurs when light fails to converge or focus on a single point. No wonder some, unfocused, are forever ‘looking beyond the mark.'”
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“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!’ ”
"Lest Ye Be Wearied and Faint in Your Minds," Ensign, May 1991, 88
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“Disciples, like diamonds, are developed in a process of time and heavy pressures, and both the disciple and the diamond reflect and magnify the light that comes through them.”
Wherefore, Ye Must Press Forward, p. 125
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“The less love, the less service.”
All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
When spiritually aligned, a poise can come, even when we do not know “the meaning of all things.” (1 Ne. 11:17) Such contented assurance produces not arrogance but quiet acceptance, which is its own form of being “anxiously engaged” but without all the bells and whistles (D&C 58:27; see also D&C 58:28). However, this spiritual contentment rests on our accepting the Atonement of Jesus, because we “have come to a knowledge of the goodness of God, and his matchless power, and his wisdom, and his patience, and his long-suffering towards the children of men; and also, the atonement which has been prepared from the foundation of the world” (Mosiah 4:6). Again, brothers and sisters, seeing Alma move from wanting to be a “trump” to being a humble “instrument” and from wanting to “shake the earth” to “perhaps [bringing] some soul to repentance” is a stunning transition! (See Alma 29:1.) Furthermore, isn’t it wonderful that we are permitted to grow, whether that growth is expressed in the space of nine verses or in a lifetime?
“Content with the Things Allotted unto Us,” Ensign, May 2000, p. 72
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“Real hope is much more than wishful musing. Hope is realistic anticipation taking the form of determination – a determination not merely to survive but to “endure . . . well” to the end. In the geometry of restored theology, hope has a greater circumference than faith. If faith increases, the perimeter of hope stretches correspondingly. Hope keeps us “anxiously engaged” in good causes even when these appear to be losing causes. Those with true hope often see their personal circumstances shaken, like kaleidoscopes, again and again. Yet with the “eye of faith,” they still see divine pattern and purpose. Whatever our particular furrow, we are to “plow in hope,” without looking back or letting yesterday hold tomorrow hostage.”
Ensign, November 1994
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“Perfect love is perfectly patient.”
All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“How many specific things go undone because forgetfulness covers what a pencil and paper could have made into a prickly reminder?”
Deposition of a Disciple (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 33.
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
“In striving for ultimate submission, our wills constitute all we really have to give God anyway. The usual gifts and their derivatives we give to him could be stamped justifiably “Return to Sender,” with a capital S. Even when God receives this one gift in return, the fully faithful will receive “all that [He] hath.” (D&C 84:38) What an exchange rate!”
“Consecrate Thy Performance,” Ensign, May 2002, p. 36
— Elder Neal A. Maxwell
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