Outside voices in General Conference · 2000 to 2026
The Conference Bookshelf
Conference speakers mostly quote scripture and each other, but they also reach for poets, presidents and novelists. Here are the 48 outside authors and sources named in three or more talks since 2000. Pull a book off the shelf to see who quoted it and the line they used.
21talks quote C. S. Lewis, the most of any outside author
20talks quote Shakespeare
18talks quote Abraham Lincoln
19% → 12%outside share of non-scripture sources, 2000s to 2020s
Counts are talks that name or cite the author in the text or footnotes, found by name matching so each one can be checked. Each spine's width shows how many talks quote that author. Quoted lines are short excerpts from the talks, linked to the full text.