Joseph F. Smith
“After all, to do well those things which God ordained to be the common lot of all man-kind, is the truest greatness. To be a successful father or a successful mother is greater than to be a successful general or a successful statesman. One is universal and eternal greatness, the other is ephemeral….Let us not be trying to substitute and artificial life for the true one.” (Gospel Doctrine, p. 358, taken from Latter-day Commentary on the Book of Mormon, compiled by K. Douglas Bassett, p.2)
Heber J. Grant
“We have heard gratitude expressed by many of the speakers because they, like Nephi of old, have been born of goodly parents. I feel that I would be unworthy the wonderful teachings and the magnificent and splendid example of a widowed mother who reared me, if I too did not lift my voice here today and thank God for a mother who loved Him, who loved the religion of Jesus Christ, whose life was an example above reproach, than whom I knew no more loyal, patriotic and true Woman among the Latter-day Saints. I thank the Lord for my father, although I never knew him. I have had love lavished upon me by the leaders of this Church and by influential men from one end of this country to the other, because of the love and respect which they felt for my father… It is indeed a wonderful and a splendid thing to be born of goodly parents; and it is one of the saddest of all sad things where the sons and the daughters of goodly parents are recreant to the faith of their parents, when they are careless and indifferent, where they fail to honor their fathers and their mothers, and thereby fail to honor their God, where they follow after the things of this world, and allow the ideas of men to blind them.” (Conference Report, April 1913, p. 112 - 113.)
Carlos E. Asay
“I’m convinced that special blessings await the youth who reverence their parents through the good times and the bad times-when honest mistakes are made and when the wise suggestions prove to be right. Most of us, like Nephi, were born of ’goodly parents,’ and the best we can offer in return is to strive to be goodly children.”(The Road to Somewhere: A Guide for Young Men and Women, p. 94.)