Spencer W. Kimball
"Why does the Lord ask you to love your enemies and to return good for evil? That you might have the benefit of it. It does not injure the one you hate so much when you hate a person…but the hate and the bitterness canker your unforgiving heart." (Faith Precedes The Miracle, p. 191)
Ezra Taft Benson
"Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ liberated man from the world, by the pure gospel of love. He demonstrated that man, through a love of God, and through kindness and charity to his fellows, could achieve his highest potential…His charge to return good for evil is still the greatest challenge to the mind of man. At the same time it is man's greatest weapon."(So Shall Ye Reap, p. 6)
Howard W. Hunter
"Think what this admonition alone would do in your neighborhood and mine, in the communities in which you and your children live, in the nations which make up our great global family. I realize this doctrine poses a significant challenge, but surely it is a more agreeable challenge than the terrible tasks posed for us by the war and poverty and pain the world continues to face.
"How are we supposed to act when we are offended, misunderstood, unfairly or unkindly treated, or sinned against? What are we supposed to do if we are hurt by those we love, or are passed over for promotion, or are falsely accused, or have our motives unfairly assailed?
"Do we fight back? Do we send in an ever-larger battalion? Do we revert to an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, or, as Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof, do we come to the realization that this finally leaves us blind and toothless?" (Conference Report, Oct. 1992)
Gordon B. Hinckley
"It is not always easy to live by these doctrines when our very natures impel us to fight back…Most of us have not reached that stage of compassion and love and forgiveness. It is not easy. It requires a self-discipline almost greater than we are capable of. But as we try, we come to know that there is a resource of healing, that there is a mighty power of healing in Christ, and that if we are to be his true servants, we must not only exercise that healing power in behalf of others, but, perhaps more important, inwardly.
"I would that the healing power of Christ might spread over the earth and be diffused through our society and into our homes, that it might cure men's hearts of the evil and adverse elements of greed and hate and conflict. I believe it could happen. I believe it must happen. If the lamb is to lie down with the lion, then peace must overcome conflict; healing must mend injury." (Faith, The Essence of True Religion, p. 35)