John Taylor

“ Neither do I know of any kind of philosophy that will instruct me in these things. I am sure a president has just as much trouble while he lives as the man who works for his daily bread; and I am sure the merchant has more perplexity and annoyance than the poor man has. The man who can supply his family with the common necessaries of life is the happiest man of the two, for he has less care and responsibility. I am sure I do not envy those men at all.
What is true philosophy? It seems to me to be a true principle for men to try and find out who they are. ”

“ It was said in former times concerning the Jews that they were, all their life long, subject to bondage through the fear of death. That bondage exists to-day among all grades in the world, whether religionists or irreligionists—they are afraid of death. You talk to ministers, and they will tell you to get prepared for death. I want to know nothing about death, it is life, eternal life I am after, and I do not care anything about the grim monster; let him grin, operate and work, it is life I am after, eternal life, and that consists in knowing "the true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent." ”

“ I want something that is calculated to elevate, ennoble and exalt the human mind, and that will place men as the sons of God on the earth, full of light, life, intelligence and the power of God, with the revelations of God beaming upon them, and the visions of eternity open to their minds. ”

“ Men, naturally, do not like God; they want to be free to follow their own inclinations and to be unrestrained in regard to religious ideas and notions; hence they make religion, as the ancients made gods, to suit their own views; and it is very difficult for such men to understand the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
In these days men study and take great pleasure in the arts and sciences, law, medicine, politics, war, mechanism; and certain kinds of divinity, particularly if they are paying institutions, are studied. Anything that comes within the reach of their natural senses ”

“ But because men discover their distances and velocity, are they to be set down as profound philosophers whom everybody must admire, and almost worship.
A man invents the steam engine, and he and others immediately begin to expatiate and boast of his powers, his philosophy and the profundity of his intellectual acquirements. ”

“ When I talk to you I talk to a people that understand the things of which I speak, and the operations of the Spirit of the Lord; and if all are not informed in regard to the sciences and learning of the day, yet all good and virtuous men and women who have lived their religion and maintained their integrity before God, feel as certain about these matters as did the man whose son Jesus healed who was born blind. ”

“ I have as poor an idea of the world and its operations to-day as of any age that ever existed, on account of the wickedness, corruption, fraud and iniquity everywhere prevalent; and if there is no kingdom of God, they have nothing to hold out that is worth a thought or reflection. ”

“ Perhaps some people will say you are a fool. Well; I know without any further explanation that you are fools if you have no higher aspirations than to live, get a few dollars, die and be damned or forgotten. ”

“ As Brother Stevenson has remarked,—"we are engaged in a great work," and it is with us "the kingdom of God or nothing;" but as the kingdom of God can only be comprehended by the spirit of revelation and the principle of eternal truth, unless men are in possession of this principle, and have the light of revelation, they do not appreciate, neither can they understand correctly the work in which we are engaged. ”

“ Men write about these things, and set themselves down as very intelligent beings, and so they are. The human system is a beautiful machine, a wonderful piece of mechanism; but whence our boast? Who organized this human system? Did man? Or can man do it? What does man discover? Why, simply the formation of a machine, a species of mechanism that has been organized by the Deity, that is all. And all the intelligence he displays is simply the investigation and discovery of something that God has made. Some men will study botany, and a very beautiful study it is ”

“ Some men will say we do not trouble ourselves about religious matters, we leave them to others. That proves you are fools. A man who will leave his eternal interest to the care of somebody else who cares nothing about him, must be a fool.
If man is an eternal being, and believes that he has an immortal soul, and that that soul will exist somewhere in happiness or misery while life, and thought, and being last, or immortality endures," and yet he will say he is not concerned about it; such a man must be a fool. ”

“ Men of the world, generally, are engaged in the pursuit of objects that come within their natural reason unaided by the spirit of revelation; and hence, formerly the inhabitants of the earth admired gods that were tangible—something that they could see, more than things they could not see. ”

“ One of old said "As high as the heavens are above the earth so are his thoughts above our thoughts, and so are his ways above our ways." There is necessarily, then, a very great difference between him and us in intellect, and in appreciating and comprehending the position that we occupy here on the earth and the relationship that we sustain to him and to the heavens. ”

“ What is the history of all these things? Go back if you please to the pyramids of Egypt, and look at those magnificent structures raised by the ambitious living, in which to deposit the remains of the dead. Look at the greatest works ever executed by man, and what are they? ”

“ Why, that power has always existed, but men were such big fools that they did not understand it. Electricity, too, always existed, but men did not know how to use it until recently One man is an architect, and he comprehends the structure of buildings, the strength of materials, and how to adapt and place those materials so as to give strength, beauty and symmetry to the buildings he erects. Others will study music, and others again various kinds of philosophy, and it is very good to understand these things ”

“ And through obedience to the Gospel we receive the Holy Ghost which opens up communication between us and the heavens, and enables us to exclaim with Paul, "O death where is thy sting, O grave where is thy victory the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law ”

“ A surgeon, for instance, is said to be a very intelligent man when he becomes acquainted with anatomy of the human system, can point out the configuration of the bones and describe the motion and power of the muscles ”

“ I believe they were men who knew how to approach God, and that when they did they obtained visions, revelations and the ministering of angels, and could look through the dark vista of future ages and see the purposes and designs of God rolling on to their accomplishment. ”

“ They would like, it is true, to go to heaven when they die; but what that heaven is, or what the God is they worship, where he resides, or what kind of enjoyment they will have they know nothing; and care as little. ”

“ The people at the present day have a rather more spiritual and refined idea of Deity than was entertained anciently. They attach more importance to faith in the Savior and his works than men did anciently ”

“ Why the "cloud-clapped towers and the gorgeous palaces have dissolved," and the bodies of some of the greatest among men, who have been embalmed, and preserved for ages, are to-day being used for fuel in fire engines in order to move passenger trains on railroads. ”