BYU NewsNet - Local leaders pay tribute to Elder Maxwell

With Elder Neal A. Maxwell's passing, the BYU community reflects on wisdom shared by Elder Maxwell on this campus.

"We've been very privileged over the years to have Elder Maxwell come and share his thoughts with us at many campus devotionals," said University Spokesman Grant Madsen. "The campus community has very much appreciated his keen insights into the gospel."

The following quotes from speeches by Elder Maxwell share his thoughts on education and personal adversity.

"If Brigham Young University did only that which other universities do, and in the same way, there would be little reason for the Church to operate it. The traditional roles a university plays ... should be, and are, much in evidence at BYU... But BYU must do even more: it must also meet the higher standards of the kingdom of God."

"Why a University in the Kingdom?" Ensign, October 1975.

"Only an excellent university can really help the Church much. Mediocrity won't do either academically or spiritually. A unique Church deserves a unique university!"

"Out of the Best Faculty," Address given at the Annual University Conference, Brigham Young University, August 1993.

"In the fatiguing work of the Lord, yawns of weariness are understandable, but yawns of boredom are not permissible."

"Of Every Kind," Address given at the Annual University Conference, Brigham Young University, August 1982.

"Whatever our particular fields of scholarship, the real test is individual discipleship, not scholarship. But how good it is when these two can company together, blending meekness with brightness and articulateness with righteousness. Such outcomes only occur, however, when there is commitment bordering on consecration."

"Discipleship and Scholarship," BYU Studies magazine, summer 1992.

"I have ... learned that illness can be a tutoring and sanctifying experience as well as a debilitating thing. There await each of us clusters of circumstances and experiences, and if we see 'things as they really are,' to use Jacob's felicitous phrase (Jacob 4:13), we'll be able to understand that illnesses may be debilitating but are also very tutoring, and we will be open to what they can convey to us. Such is spiritually very, very important.

"I am going to preach a hard doctrine to you now. The submission of one's will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God's altar. It is a hard doctrine, but it is true. The many other things we give to God, however nice that may be of us, are actually things He has already given us, and He has loaned them to us. But when we begin to submit ourselves by letting our wills be swallowed up in God's will, then we are really giving something to Him. And that hard doctrine lies at the center of discipleship.

"I love you. I have great hopes for your generation. Thank you for this chance to bear my witness to you today. This is the Lord's work. There is nothing else that even approaches it in significance. And you have been called to carry it forward today in a time of opportunity such as we have never seen before. God loves you that much, of which I gladly testify in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen."

"Sharing Insights from My Life," BYU Devotional, Jan. 12, 1999.