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Joseph Smith

Portrait of Joseph Smith
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons, public domain

AUTHOR PROFILE

Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith Jr. founded the religious movement that became The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served as its first president. His teachings, revelations, and translation of the Book of Mormon remain central to Latter-day Saint belief. The quotes collected here offer entry points into his ideas, but their wording and attribution should be checked against the earliest available records.

FEATURED QUOTE
“Happiness consists not of having, but of being – not of possessing, but of enjoying. . . . For what a man has he may be dependent upon others; what he is rests with him alone. What he obtains in life is but acquisition; what he attains is true growth.”
— Joseph Smith

Biography at a glance

  • Born: December 23, 1805, in Sharon, Vermont
  • Died: June 27, 1844, in Carthage, Illinois
  • Family: Married Emma Hale in 1827
  • Church service: Organized the Church on April 6, 1830, and served as its first president
  • Major works: Book of Mormon translation, recorded revelations, and the organization of temple worship and the Relief Society

Seeking answers in western New York

Joseph grew up in a family whose moves eventually brought them to western New York. Religious disagreement and his own questions about forgiveness led him to pray near the family farm in 1820. He later described a vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ, an experience Latter-day Saints call the First Vision. Joseph left more than one account of it; the Church’s guide to those accounts helps readers understand when and how they were recorded.

Scripture and a new church

In 1827 Joseph married Emma Hale. The Book of Mormon was published in 1830, and the Church was organized that April. As converts gathered, Joseph’s recorded revelations shaped its worship, leadership, and ideas about Zion. The Church’s historical overview follows these developments through the New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois years.

Nauvoo and his final years

After the Saints were driven from Missouri, Joseph helped establish Nauvoo, Illinois. There he taught about temple covenants and the eternal family, and in 1842 he organized the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo with Emma as its first president. Religious and political conflict intensified around the city. Joseph and his brother Hyrum were killed at Carthage Jail in June 1844. His life and the movement he led continued to shape the people who crossed the plains after his death.

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Quotes by Joseph Smith

89 quotes

“They are the Twelve Apostles, who are called to the office of the Traveling High Council, who are to preside over the churches of the Saints, among the Gentiles, where there is no presidency established; and they are to travel and preach among the Gentiles, until the Lord shall command them to go to the Jews. They are to hold the keys of this ministry, to unlock the door of the Kingdom of heaven unto all nations, and to preach the Gospel to every creature. This is the power, authority, and virtue of their apostleship.”

Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 74

— Joseph Smith

“Says one, ‘I cannot believe in the salvation of beasts.’ Any man who would tell you that this could not be, would tell you that the revelations are not true. John heard the words of the beasts giving glory to God, and understood them. God who made the beasts could understand every language spoken by them. The four beasts were four of the most noble animals that had filled the measure of their creation, and had been saved from other worlds, because they were perfect: they were like angels in their sphere. We are not told where they came from, and I do not know; but they were seen and heard by John praising and glorifying God.”

Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 291, 292

— Joseph Smith

Concerning resurrection, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, or the kingdom that God inherits or inhabits, but the flesh without the blood and the Spirit of God flowing in the veins instead of the blood, for blood is the part of the body that causes corruption. Therefore we must be changed in the twinkle of an eye or have to lay down these tabernacles and leave the blood vanish away. . . . Blood is the corruptible part of the tabernacles.

The Words of Joseph Smith, pp. 370-71

— Joseph Smith

“When a man works by faith he works by mental exertion instead of physical force. It is by words, instead of exerting his physical powers, with which every being works when he works by faith. God said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light.’ . . . And the Savior says: “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, say tot his mountain, ‘Remove,’ and it will remove; or say to that sycamine tree, ‘Be ye plucked up, and planted in the midst of the sea,’ and it shall obey you. Faith, then works by words; and with these its mightiest works have been, and will be, performed.

Lectures on Faith, 72-73 — The Pearl of Great Price Student Manual, p. 7

— Joseph Smith

“An angel of God never has wings. Some will say that they have seen a spirit; that he offered them his hand, but they did not touch it. This is a lie. First, it is contrary to the plan of God; a spirit cannot come but in glory; an angel has flesh and bones; we see not their glory. The devil may appear as an angel of light. Ask God to reveal it; if it be of the devil, he will flee from you; if of God, He will manifest Himself, or make it manifest.”

Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 162

— Joseph Smith

How are we to see it? As the lighting up of the morning or the dawning of the morning cometh from the east and shineth unto the west, so also is the coming of the Son of Man. The dawning of the morning makes its appearance in the east and moves along gradually. So also will the coming of the Son of Man be. It will be small at its first appearance and gradually become larger until every eye shall see it. Shall the Saints understand it? Oh yes. Paul says so [1 Thes. 5:4-5]. Shall the wicked understand? Oh no. They [will] attribute it to a natural cause. They will probably suppose it is two great comets coming in contact with each other. It will be small at first and will grow larger and larger until it will be all in a blaze, so that every eye shall see it.

Discourse of 6 April 1843, recorded by James Burgess; WJS, p. 181

— Joseph Smith

In pitching my tent we found three prairie rattlesnakes, which the brethren were about to kill, but I said, ‘Let them alone—don’t hurt them! How will the serpent ever lose its venom, while the servants of God possess the same disposition, and continue to make war upon it? Men must become harmless before the brute creation, and when men lose their vicious dispositions and cease to destroy the animal race, the lion and the lamb can dwell together, and the sucking child can play with the serpent in safety.’”

Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 71

— Joseph Smith

I have asked of the Lord concerning His coming; and while asking the Lord, He gave a sign and said, “In the days of Noah I set a bow in the heavens as a sign and token that in any year that the bow should be seen the Lord would not come; but there should be seed time and harvest during that year: but whenever you see the bow withdrawn, it shall be a token that there shall be famine, pestilence, and great distress among the nations, and that the coming of the Messiah is not far distant.”

Teachings, pp. 340-41

— Joseph Smith

When I contemplate the rapidity with which the great and glorious day of the coming of the Son of Man advances, when He shall come to receive His Saints unto Himself, where they shall dwell in His presence, and be crowned with glory and immortality: when I consider that soon the heavens are to be shaken, and the earth tremble and reel to and fro; and that the heavens are to be unfolded as a scroll when it is rolled up; and that every mountain and island are to flee away, I cry out in my heart, What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness!

Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 29

— Joseph Smith

“For a man to lay down his all, his character and reputation, his honor, and applause, his good name among men, his houses, his lands, his brothers and sisters, his wife and children, and even his own life also – counting all things but filth and dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ – requires more than mere belief or supposition that he is doing the will of God; but actual knowledge, realizing that, when these sufferings are ended, he will enter into eternal rest, and be a partaker of the glory of God.”

Lectures on Faith, 68-70

— Joseph Smith

“While one portion of the human race is judging and condemning the other without mercy, the Great Parent of the universe looks upon the whole of the human family with a fatherly care and paternal regard; He views them as His offspring, and without any of those contracted feelings that influence the children of men, causes ‘His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.’ He holds the reins of judgment in His hands; He is a wise Lawgiver, and will judge all men, not according to the narrow, contracted notions of men, but ‘according to the deeds done in the body whether they be good or evil. . . . We need not doubt the wisdom and intelligence of the Great Jehovah.”

History of the Church, 4:595–96

— Joseph Smith

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