Quick Quotes on Modesty
 

"Modesty in dress and manner will assist in protecting against temptation. It may be difficult to find modest clothing, but it can be found with enough effort. I sometimes wish every girl had access to a sewing machine and training in how to use it. She could then make her own attractive clothing. I suppose this is an unrealistic wish. But I do not hesitate to say that you can be attractive without being immodest. You can be refreshing and buoyant and beautiful in your dress and in your behavior. Your appeal to others will come of your personality, which is the sum of your individual characteristics. Be happy. Wear a smile. Have fun. But draw some rigid parameters, a line in the sand, as it were, beyond which you will not go."  -President Gordon B. Hinckley, 2004 from a talk entitled, "Stay on the High Road"

In 1869, Brigham Young told his daughters: "All Israel are looking to my family and watching the example set by my wives and children. For this reason I desire to organize my own family first into a society for the promotion of habits of order, thrift, industry, and charity; and above all things I desire them to retrench from their extravagance in dress, in eating and even in speech …I am weary of the manner in which our women seek to outdo each other in all the foolish fashions of the world.  "I want you to set your own fashions. Let your apparel be neat and comely, and the workmanship of your hands. I have long had it in my mind to organize the young ladies of Zion into an association so that they might assist the older members of the Church, their fathers and mothers, in propagating, teaching, and practicing the principles I have been so long teaching … I wish our girls to obtain a knowledge of the gospel for themselves."

"Immodest dress also tarnishes the sacredness of the human body. Many
rationalizations have been put forth to justify immodest fashion and pornography. Some vigorously assert that no law can be adopted to prevent such expression and then argue that it can't be wrong because there is no law against it...some say dress and hair don't matter - it is inside that counts. I believe that truly it is what's inside a person that counts, but that's what worries me.  Casual dress at holy places and events is a message about what is inside that person. It may be pride or rebellion or something else, but at a minimum it says, "I don't get it. I don't understand the difference between the sacred and the profane." In that condition they are easily drawn away from the Lord. They do not appreciate the value of what they have. I worry about them. Unless they can gain some understanding and capture some feeling for sacred things, they are at risk of eventually losing all that matters most. You are Saints of the great latter-day dispensation - look the part." -D. Todd Christofferson, "A Sense of the Sacred".

(Modesty and Sabbath Worship)  "I make a special appeal regarding how women might dress for Church services and Sabbath Worship. We used to speak of "best dress" or "Sunday Dress" and maybe we should do so again. In any case, from ancient times to modern we have always been invited to present our best selves inside and out when entering the house of the Lord--and a dedicated LDS Chapel is a "house of the Lord". Our clothing or footwear need never be expensive, indeed should not be expensive, but neither should it appear that we are on our way to the beach. When we come to worship the God and Father of us all and to partake of the sacrament symbolizing the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we should be as comely and respectful, as dignified and appropriate as we can be. We should be recognizable in appearance as well and in behavior that we truly are disciples of Christ, that in a spirit of worship we are meek and lowly of heart, that we truly desire the Savior's Spirit to be with us always." -Jeffrey R. Holland in the November 2005 Ensign

"Sisters, be careful how you dress. I'm not here to give you a dress standard. Just dress in such a way that if the Lord came tomorrow and called a meeting together and invited you to attend that you would feel comfortable to a be in his presence" -Elder M. Russell Ballard Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles At a fireside in Salt Lake City Tabernacle on Sunday September 19, 1999 to students in the University Wards.