1 Ne. 8:25; 2 Ne. 8:7,12; D&C 3:6-7; 30:1-2; 60:2; Matt. 14:9; John 12:42-43; Conference Report, Apr. 1989, p. 4; Conference Report, Apr. 1978, pp. 116-117; Ensign, May 1992, pp. 40-42; Ensign, May 1993, pp. 53; refer in this text to Alma 39:4
“I am so grateful that prophets do not crave popularity.” (Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report, Apr. 1978, pp. 116-117)
“My husband said he still remembers going to his first examination at the University of Utah… . As the professor passed out the examination and left the room, he said some classmates started to pull out little cheat papers from pockets and from under their books. He said, ‘My heart began to pound as I realized how difficult it is to compete with cheaters.’ … About then a tall, thin student stood up in the back of the room and said, ‘I sold my farm and put my wife and three little children in an upstairs apartment to go to medical school, and I’ll turn in the first one of you who cheats and YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT!’ They believed it. My husband said he looked like Abraham Lincoln. There were many sheepish expressions and those cheat papers started to disappear as fast as they had appeared… . That man cared more about character than popularity. When I heard the name of J. Ballard Washburn to be sustained as a member of the Quorum of Seventy, I remembered that he was that medical student.” (Janette C. Hales, BYU Devotional, Mar. 16, 1993)
“[To the young women], Choose your friends with caution. In a survey made in selected wards and stakes of the Church, we learned a most significant fact: those persons whose friends married in the temple usually married in the temple, while those persons whose friends did not marry in the temple usually did not marry in the temple. The influence of one’s friends appeared to be a highly dominant factor—even more so than parental urging, classroom instruction, or proximity to a temple.” (Thomas S. Monson, Ensign, May 1997, pp. 94-95)
“If I now had in my possession one hundred million dollars in cash, I could buy the favor of the publishers of newspapers and control their presses; with that amount I could make this people popular, though I expect that popularity would send us to hell.” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 3:160)
“Popularity is never a test of truth. Many a prophet has been killed or cast out. As we come closer to the second coming, you can expect that as the people of the world become more wicked, the prophet will be less popular with them.” (Ezra Taft Benson, BYU Speeches of the Year, 1980, pp. 26-30)
“Individuals who do wrong want you to join them because they feel more comfortable in what they are doing when others do it also. They may also want to take advantage of you. It is natural to want to be accepted by peers, to be part of a group—some even join gangs because of that desire to belong, but they lose their freedom, and some lose their lives… . You don’t need to compromise your standards to be accepted by good friends… . No one intends to make serious mistakes. They come when you compromise your standards to be more acepted by others.” (Richard G. Scott, Ensign, Nov. 1994, p. 37)