J. Reuben Clark

AUTHOR PROFILE

J. Reuben Clark

J. Reuben Clark is described in biographical records as an American leader of the LDS Church (1871–1961) (1871–1961). The selections gathered here touch on forgiveness, plan of salvation, repentance. This profile brings the attributed quotations together with their available source information.

FEATURED QUOTE

“Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation. … Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.”

— J. Reuben Clark

Biography at a glance

Profile: American leader of the LDS Church (1871–1961)
Life: 1871–1961
Public roles: Under Secretary of State
Quotes in this collection: 10

Life and work

J. Reuben Clark held public roles including Under Secretary of State. Biographical records connect J. Reuben Clark with Columbia University and University of Utah. This collection includes 10 quotations credited to J. Reuben Clark. Each quotation page preserves its own citation, when supplied, so readers can follow the passage back to its stated context.

Reading the quotations

The selections gathered here touch on forgiveness, plan of salvation, repentance. These topic links make it easier to compare these words with other voices in the LDS Flow library. Citations are shown on the individual quotation pages where the source collection provided them.

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Sources and further reading

Background on J. Reuben Clark

Quotes by J. Reuben Clark

10 quotes

“Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation. … Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.”

Conference Report, Apr. 1938, 103.

— J. Reuben Clark

“I believe that our Heavenly Father wants to save every one of his children. I do not think he intends to shut any of us off. . . . I believe that in his justice and mercy he will give us the maximum reward for our acts, give us all that he can give, and in the reverse, I believe that he will impose upon us the minimum penalty which it is possible for him to impose.”

Conference Report, October 3, 1953, p. 84

— J. Reuben Clark

As I think about faith, this principle of power, I am obliged to believe that it is an intelligent force. Of what kind, I do not know. But it is superior to and overrules all other forces of which we know. . . . [We] have had this great power given unto us, this power of faith. What are we doing about it? Can you, can we, do the mighty things that our Savior did? Yes. They have been done by the members of the Church who had the faith and the righteousness so to do. Think of what is within your power if you but live the Gospel, if you but live so that you may invoke the power which is within you.

Conference Report, April 1960, p. 21

— J. Reuben Clark

It is my hope and my belief that the Lord never permits the light of faith wholly to be extinguished in any human heart, however faint the light may glow. The Lord has provided that there shall still be there a spark which, with teaching, with the spirit of righteousness, with love, with tenderness, with example, with living the Gospel, shall brighten and glow again, however darkened the mind may have been. And if we shall fail so to reach those among us of our own whose faith has dwindled low, we shall fail in one of the main things which the Lord expects at our hands.

Conference Report, October 1936, p. 114

— J. Reuben Clark

“I often think that one of the most beautiful things in the Christ’s life was his words on the cross, when, suffering under the agony of a death that is said to have been the most painful that the ancients could devise, death on the cross, after he had been unjustly, illegally, contrary to all the rules of mercy, condemned and then crucified, when he had been nailed to the cross and was about to give up his life, he said to his Father in heaven, as those who were within hearing testify: ‘… Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do’ (Luke 23:34).”

Conference Report, 30 Sept. 1955, p. 24.

— J. Reuben Clark

“We are poor in character when we think getting by is a substitute for doing our best.”

— J. Reuben Clark

“I believe that his juridical concept of his dealings with his children could be expressed in this way: I believe that in his justice and mercy, he will give us the maximum reward for our acts, give us all that he can give, and in the reverse, I believe that he will impose upon us the minimum penalty which it is possible for him to impose.”

Conference Report, 3 Oct. 1953, p. 84.

— J. Reuben Clark

“And I urge on you, brothers and sisters, that when you pray, let that central thought always be with you, and do not always expect that the answer to your prayer will come in the way in which you desire it.”

Conference Report, October 1958, p. 46

— J. Reuben Clark

“Never let your faith be difficult to detect.”

— J. Reuben Clark

“Adam wandered alone in the glorious Garden in Eden, which he had dressed and adorned… for sin was not yet in the world. Through all this magnificence Adam wandered, lonely, unsolaced, uncompanioned, the only being of his kind in the whole world, his life unshared in a solitude of exquisite elegance, and, what was of far greater moment, his mission, as he knew it to be, impossible of fulfillment, except the Father gave him an helpmeet.”

Selected Papers on Religion, Education, and Youth

— J. Reuben Clark