I tried to be the greatest boxer in the world and a good parent, too. I had instant feedback on my success as a boxer. Often, parents don't really know if what they are doing is right or wrong until their child is grown and it is too late to change any of the decisions. Whatever my failings as a parent, I am very proud of all my children. It wasn't easy for them to make their own way with such a controversial and public father.
My mother spoke of Christ to my father, by her feminine and childlike virtues, and, after having borne his violence without a murmur or complaint, gained him at the close of his life to Christ.
I grew up in the Baptist Church, and going to church with my father; I remember being 8 years old, trying to determine whether I was really ready to give up sin, and for days I agonized.
Before us lay a painful road, And guidance have I sought in duteous love From Wisdom's heavenly Father. Hence hath flowed Patience, with trust that, whatsoe'er the way Each takes in this high matter, all may move Cheered with the prospect of a brighter day.
What I’ve realized is that life doesn’t count for much unless you’re willing to do your small part to leave our children — all of our children — a better world. Any fool can have a child. That doesn’t make you a father. It’s the courage to raise a child that makes you a father.
None of us will honor our Heavenly Father and our Savior more than by serving as a devoted, compassionate missionary, "For them that honour me I will honour."
And new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is quite put out; The sun is lost, and the earth, and no man's wit Can well direct him where to look for it. And freely men confess that this world's spent, When in the planets, and the firmament They seek so many new; then see that this Is crumbled out again to his atomies. 'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone; All just supply, and all relation: Prince, subject, Father, Son, are things forgot.
As we move toward the future, we must not neglect the lessons of the past. Our Heavenly Father gave His Son. The Son of God gave His life. We are asked by Them to give our lives, as it were, in Their divine service. Will you? Will I? Will we? There are lessons to be taught, there are kind deeds to be done, there are souls to be saved.
Happy he who far from business, like the primitive are of mortals, cultivates with his own oxen the fields of his fathers, free from all anxieties of gain.
My father was a film-maker. He always said he wanted to go like Humphrey Jennings, the legendary director who stepped backwards over a cliff while framing a better shot.