There are many hours that both parents and children squander away that might be spent in learning. . . . The Lord will not do a miracle to give us learning when we can get it ourselves. Some have an idea that [there] is no matter about getting knowledge here, thinking that by and by that they will enter heaven and that God will fill their minds with all the knowledge of the eternal worlds. But they will be mistaken in this for they will have to learn it little by little as here. (WWJ 3:78.)
It would be better for us not to be able to cast up a single sum in addition and be humble before the Lord than to have ever so much knowledge and permit that knowledge to lead us to destruction. (WWJ 5:428.)
Discourses of Wilford Woodruff (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1946).
If any man has a truth that we have not, we say, "Let us have it." I am willing to exchange all the errors and false notions for one truth, and should consider that I had made a good bargain. We are not afraid of light and truth. Our religion embraces every truth in heaven, earth or hell; it embraces all truth. (p. 17)
You are now laying a foundation in the bloom and beauty of youth and in the morning of your days to step forth upon the stage of life to act a conspicuous part in the midst of the most important dispensation and generation in which man has ever lived. And I can say in truth and safety that the result of your future lives, the influence which you will exert among man, and finally your eternal destiny for time and eternity, will in a great measure depend upon the foundation which you lay in the days of your youth, the manner in which you store your mind and cultivate while young.
Therefore neither you nor your parents can be too careful to see that your young and fruitful minds are fed and stored with good principles. You want to learn that which is true--when you learn anything about God, Jesus Christ, the angels, the Holy Ghost, the gospel, the way to be saved, your duty to your parents, brethren, sisters, or to any of your fellow men, or any history, art or science, I say when you learn any of those things you want to learn that which is true, so that when you get those things riveted in your mind and planted in your heart, and you trust to it in future life and lean upon it for support, that it may not fail you like a broken reed. (pp. 265, 266)
Do not be discouraged because you cannot learn all at once; learn one thing at a time, learn it well, and treasure it up, then learn another truth and treasure that up, and in a few years you will have a great store of useful knowledge which will not only be a great blessing to yourselves and your children, but to your fellow men. (JH 2, May 1, 1857, p. 269)