Mormon Momma

One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Hugh B. Brown, when he spoke at BYU in 1958, just two weeks before being ordained an apostle. My mother loved Pres. Brown when she was a secretary in President McKay’s office and Elder Brown was one of Pres. McKay’s Counselors. She always said he was a wonderfully humble and kind man.

The speech is entitled “The Questing Spirit.” I have been unable to find a full copy, but there is an excerpt in the April 2002 Issue of Sunstone, and my favorite quote is in that excerpt. President Brown said the following:

I hope that you will develop the questing spirit. Be unafraid of new ideas for they are the stepping stones of progress. You will of course respect the opinions of others but be unafraid to dissent—if you are informed.

…Now I have mentioned freedom to express your thoughts, but I caution you that … in that search you will need at least three virtues; courage, zest, and modesty. The ancients put that thought in the form of a prayer. They said, ‘From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it has all truth—O God of truth deliver us’.

What think ye?