Thomas S. Monson on Scouting

From a speech given at the BSA national meetings in May 1992:

"Throughout our country, we have been screaming ever louder for more and more of the things we cannot take with us, and paying less and less attention to the real sources of the very happiness we seek. We have been measuring our fellowmen more by balance sheets and less by morals standards.... We have become so concerned over the growth of our earning capacity that we have neglected the growth of our character. Perhaps this is indicative of the days in which we are living--days of compromise and diluting of principles, days when sin is labeled as error, when morality is relative and when materialism emphasizes the value of expediency and the shirking of responsibility. Well might a confused boy cry out using the words of Phillip of old, 'How can I [find my way], except some man should guide me?'"

As quoted in "To The Rescue, the biography of Thomas S. Monson," by Heidi Swinton, p. 448.