Self-Reliance

The Teachings Spencer W. Kimball, 370
"Teach them truth and give them the gospel and ambition is born, pride is nurtured, independence replaces slothfulness and men learn how to build their own homes and to furnish them and paint them, and then to build for others."

2 Thessalonians 3:10
10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not ^awork, neither should he eat.

Dallin H. Oaks, The Lord's Way, 117
the doctrine of self-reliance, of course, imposes no obligation of work on the aged, incapacitated, sick, or others who are unable to work to support themselves.

Work and self-reliance have an obvious application to our relationship to civil governments. For example, work and self-reliance were inherent in the most important United States government distribution of the 19th century. Under the Homestead Act of 1862, the United States government offered a deed to 160 acres of public land to "the head of a family, or [other person] who has arrived at the age of 21 years," who improve the land by residing upon it and cultivating it for a term of five years. Settlers who obtain title to public lands by this means, including many Mormon pioneers, worked for what they received. The government gave them an opportunity, not a handout. They made the nation stronger by subduing its frontiers, settling its public lands, paying its taxes, and producing food for its people.

A more recent example is the G.I. Bill, by which a grateful government gave educational benefits to members of its armed forces who had interrupted their other activities to serve their country.