Hugh Nibley Quotes

The worst sinners, according to Jesus, are not the harlots and publicans, but the religious leaders with their insistence on proper dress and grooming, their careful observance of all the rules, their precious concern for status symbols, their strict legality, their pious patriotism... the haircut becomes the test of virtue in a world where Satan deceives and rules by appearances.

Who is righteous? Anyone who is repenting. No matter how bad he has been, if he is repenting he is a righteous man. There is hope for him. And no matter how good he has been all his life, if he is not repenting, he is a wicked man. The difference is which way you are facing. The man on the top of the stairs facing down if much worse off than the man on the bottom step who is facing up. The direction we are facing, that is repentance; and that is what determines whether we are good or bad.

Only if you reach the boundary will the boundary recede before you. And if you don't, if you confine your efforts, the boundary will shrink to accommodate itself to your efforts. And you can only expand your capacities by working to the very limit.

True knowledge never shuts the door on more knowledge, but zeal often does.

If you pray for an angel to visit you, you know what he'll do if he comes. He'll just quote the scriptures to you - so you know you're wasting your time waiting for what we already have. I'm quite serious about that.

Why read the Book of Mormon? Because angels do not come on trivial errands.

What on earth have a man's name, degree, academic position, and of all things, opinions, to do with whether a thing is true?

Why do people feel guilty about TV? What is wrong with it? Just this: it shuts out all the wonderful things of which the mind is capable, leaving it drugged in a state of thoughtless stupor.

Indolent and unworthy the beggar may be—but that is not your concern: It is better, said Joseph Smith, to feed ten impostors than to run the risk of turning away one honest petition.

No matter where we begin, if we pursue knowledge diligently and honestly, our quest will inevitably lead us from the things of the earth to the things of heaven.

God's command to have dominion over every living thing is a call to service, a test of responsibility, a rule of love, a cooperation with nature, whereas Satan's use of force for the sake of getting gain renders the earth uninhabitable. Brigham Young's views on the environment direct attention to man's responsibility to beautify the earth, to eradicate the influences of harmful substances, and to use restraint, that the earth may return to its paradisiacal glory.

[Eve] sees through Satan's disquise of clever hypocrisy, identifies him, and exposes him for what he is...[ever since Satan has] had it in for women.

Don't be like anybody else. Be different. Then you can make a contribution. Otherwise, you just echo something; you're just a reflection.

There is no patriarchy or matriarchy in the garden; the two supervise each other. Adam is given no arbitrary power; Eve is to heed him only insofar as he obeys their Father--and who decides that? She must keep check on him as much as he does on her. It is, if you will, a system of checks and balances in which each party is as distinct and independent in its sphere as are the departments of government under the Constitution--and just as dependent on each other.

And the issue is never the merits of the evidence but always the jealous rivalry of the contestants to see which would be the official light unto the world. Right down to the present day we have been the spectators of a foolish contest between equally vain and bigoted rivals.

The gas-law of learning: . . . any amount of information no matter how small will fill any intellectual void no matter how large.

You can only expand your capacities by working to the very limit

The Book of Mormon is an inexhaustible encyclopedia of knowledge.

Knowledge can be heady stuff, but it easily leads to an excess of zeal! -- to illusions of grandeur and a desire to impress others and achieve eminence . . . Our search for knowledge should be ceaseless, which means that it is open-ended, never resting on laurels, degrees, or past achievements.

Every way of life produces its own environment and in turn is influenced by that environment.

Work is, after all, not a busy running back and forth in established grooves, though that is the essence of our modern business and academic life, but the supreme energy and disciplined curiosity required to cut new grooves.

The tragedy of the Book of Mormon is not what became of the Nephites but what the Nephites became.

Well, I have a testimony, I may be ignorant, but I am not lost.

It is throwing our life away, to think of the wrong things.

All scholarship, like all science, is an ongoing, open-ended discussion in which all conclusions are tentative forever, the principal value and charm of the game being the discovery of the totally unexpected.

No matter what happens, it will, then, always remain secret: only I know exactly the weight and force of the covenants I have made -- I and the Lord with whom I have made them -- unless I choose to reveal them. If I do not, then they are secret and sacred no matter what others may say or do. Anyone who would reveal these things has not understood them, and therefore that person has not given them away. You cannot reveal what you do not know!

In this crucible of wickedness the true greatness of Mormon shines like a star.

Things that appear unlikely, impossible, or paradoxical from one point of view often make perfectly good sense from another.

Wherever we look in the ancient world the past has been controlled, but nowhere more rigorously than in the history of the Christian church. The methods of control, wherever we find them, fall under three general heads which might be described as (a) the invention, (b) the destruction, and (c) the alteration of documents.

Being self-taught is no disgrace; but being self-certified is another matter.

A professor is not one who knows, but one who professes to know, and [thus] is constantly in the position of inviting challenge. . . . He professes publicly where everyone is invited to come and challenge, [and] at any time he must be willing and able to defend it openly against all comers. The degree is originally a chivalric device-a gauntlet of defiance to all rivals-and not a safe rampart or dug-out for a scholar to hide behind in safe immunity from any challenge.

As knowledge increases, the verdict of yesterday must be reversed today, and in the long run the most positive authority is the least to be trusted.

The unique value of Christianity lies in those things which would never in a million years occur to men if left to themselves.

Nobody loves the rat race, but nobody can think of anything else—Satan has us just where he wants us.

Man's dominion is a call to service, not a license to to exterminate.

Careerism is the determination to reign in hell rather than serve in heaven.

At UCLA I quickly learned the knack of getting grades, a craven surrender to custom, since grades had little to do with learning.

The very helplessness of the public which makes it necessary for them to consult the experts also makes it impossible for them to judge how expert they are.

Competitiveness always rests on the assumption of a life-and-death struggle.

Joseph Smith could not have picked a better year to start The Book of Mormon than 600 B.C.