Make good houses; learn how to build; become good mechanics and business men, that you may know how to build a house, a barn, or a store-house, how to make a farm, and how to raise stock, and take every care of it by providing proper shelter and every suitable convenience for keeping it through the winter; and prove yourselves worthy of the greater riches that will be committed to you than this valley and what it can produce. 8:289.
Accumulate Property—Efforts to accumulate property in the correct channel are far from being an injury to any community, on the contrary they are highly beneficial, provided individuals, with all that they have, always hold themselves in readiness to advance the interests of the Kingdom of God on the earth. Let every man and woman be industrious, prudent, and economical in their acts and feelings, and while gathering to themselves, let each one strive to identify his or her interests with the interests of this community, with those of their neighbor and neighborhood, let them seek their happiness and welfare in that of all, and we will be blessed and prospered. 3:330.
To do right can be reduced to perfect simplicity in a few words, viz., from this time henceforth, let no person work, or transact any kind of business whatever, that he cannot do in the name of the Lord. 1:337.
This life is worth as much as any life that any being can possess in time or in eternity. There is no life more precious to us in the eye of eternal wisdom and justice than the life which we now possess. Our first duty is to take care of this life. 11:113.
To be prudent and saving, and to use the elements in our possession for our benefit and the benefit of our fellow beings is wise and righteous; but to be slothful, wasteful, lazy and indolent, to spend our time and means for naught, is unrighteous. 16:16.
We all believe that the Lord will fight our battles; but how? Will he do it while we are unconcerned and make no effort whatever for our own safety when an enemy is upon us? If we make no efforts to guard our towns, our houses, our cities, our wives and children, will the Lord guard them for us? He will not; but if we pursue the opposite course and strive to help him to accomplish his designs, then will he fight our battles. We are baptized for the remission of sins; but it would be quite as reasonable to expect remission of sins without baptism, as to expect the Lord to fight our battles without our taking every precaution to be prepared to defend ourselves. The Lord requires us to be quite as willing to fight our own battles as to have him fight them for us. If we are not ready for an enemy when he comes upon us, we have not lived up to the requirements of him who guides the ship of Zion, or who dictates the affairs of his Kingdom. 11:131.
Debt—Pay your debts, we will help you to do so, but do not run into debt any more. 14:105.
Be prompt in everything, and especially to pay your debts. 14:279.
A man who will run into debt, when he has no prospect of paying it back again, does not understand the principles that should prevail in a well regulated community, or he is wilfully dishonest. 11:258.
A man who will not pay his honest debts is no Latter-day Saint, if he has the means to pay them. 11:258.