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
“‘Will mothers have their children in eternity?’ Yes! Yes! Mothers, you shall have your children; for they shall have eternal life, for their debt is paid. There is no damnation awaiting them for they are in the spirit. But as the child dies, so shall it rise from the dead, and be forever living in the learning of God. It will never grow [in the grave]; it will still be the child, in the same precise form [when it rises] as it appeared before it died out of its mother’s arms.”
Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, ed. Alma P. Burton (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1956), 138–39.
— Joseph Smith
In conversation with the Prophet Joseph Smith once in Nauvoo, the subject of children in the resurrection was broached. I believe it was in Sister Leonora Cannon Taylor’s house. She had just lost one of her children, and I had also lost one previously. The Prophet wanted to comfort us, and he told us that we should receive those children in the morning of the resurrection just as we laid them down, in purity and innocence, and we should nourish and care for them as their mothers. He said that children would be raised in the resurrection just as they were laid down, and that they would obtain all the intelligence necessary to occupy thrones, principalities and powers. The idea that I got from what he said was that the children would grow and develop in the Millennium, and that the mothers would have the pleasure of training and caring for them, which they had been deprived of in this life.
History of the Church, 4:556.
— Joseph Smith
I told them I was but a man, and they must not expect me to be perfect; if they expected perfection from me, I should expect it from them; but if they would bear with my infirmities and the infirmities of the brethren, I would likewise bear with their infirmities.
History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Volume 5, Page 181
— Joseph Smith
“The baptism of water, without the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost attending it, is of no use. They are necessarily and inseparably connected.”
Teachings: Joseph Smith, 90
— Joseph Smith
“Baptism is a holy ordinance preparatory to the reception of the Holy Ghost; it is the channel and key by which the Holy Ghost will be administered.”
Teachings: Joseph Smith, 95–96
— Joseph Smith
“There should be no license for sin, but mercy should go hand in hand with reproof.”
Documentary History of the Church, vol. 5, p. 24.
— Joseph Smith
In my leisure moments I have meditated upon the subject, and asked the question, why it is that infants, innocent children, are taken away from us, especially those that seem to be the most intelligent and interesting. The strongest reasons that present themselves to my mind are these: This world is a very wicked world; and it is a proverb that the “world grows weaker and wiser;” if that is the case, the world grows more wicked and corrupt. In the earlier ages of the world a righteous man, and a man of God and of intelligence, had a better chance to do good, to be believed and received than at the present day: but in these days such a man is much opposed and persecuted by most of the inhabitants of the earth, and he has much sorrow to pass through here. The Lord takes many away, even in infancy, that they may escape the envy of man, and the sorrows and evils of this present world; they were too pure, too lovely, to live on earth; therefore, if rightly considered, instead of mourning we have reason to rejoice as they are delivered from evil, and we shall soon have them again.
History of the Church, 4:553.
— Joseph Smith
If it has been demonstrated that I have been willing to die for a ‘Mormon, I am bold to declare before Heaven that I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbyterian, a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination; for the same principle which would trample upon the rights of the Latter-day Saints would trample upon the rights of the Roman Catholics, or of any other denomination who may be unpopular and too weak to defend themselves.”
Joseph Smith - History of the Church, 5:498.
— Joseph Smith
“When you feel pure intelligence flowing into you it may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon; (i.e.) those things that were presented unto your minds by the Spirit of God, will come to pass; and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ Jesus.”
— Joseph Smith
“If it were possible that little children could sin,” spoke the angel, the Atonement covers the sin (Mosiah 3:16; emphasis added). Since the Atonement cancels out original sin, and because children cannot sin, infant baptism is unnecessary. In fact, the Prophet additionally taught, “The doctrine of baptizing children, or sprinkling them, or they must welter in hell, is a doctrine not true, not supported in Holy Writ, and is not consistent with the character of God. All children are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and the moment that children leave this world, they are taken to the bosom of Abraham.”
History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 2nd ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1908), 4:554
— Joseph Smith
“If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way. Do you believe in Jesus Christ and the Gospel of salvation which he revealed? So do I. Christians should cease wrangling and contending with each other, and cultivate the principles of union and friendship in their midst
Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 5:499.
— Joseph Smith
The principal corner stone in representation of the First Presidency, is now duly laid in honor of the Great God; and may it there remain until the whole fabric is completed; and may the same be accomplished speedily; that the Saints may have a place to worship God, and the Son of Man have where to lay His head.”
History of the Church, 4:329.
— Joseph Smith
“Let these truths sink down in our hearts, that we may even here begin to enjoy that which shall be in full hereafter.”
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, (2007), p. 45
— Joseph Smith
A man is saved no faster than he gains knowledge.
Discourse, 10 April 1842, as Reported by Wilford Woodruff
— Joseph Smith
You will always discover in the first glance of a man, in the outlines of his features something of his mind
Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 299
— Joseph Smith
“You might as well baptize a bag of sand as a man, if not done in view of the remission of sins and getting of the Holy Ghost. Baptism by water is but half a baptism, and is good for nothing without the other half—that is, the baptism of the Holy Ghost.”
Teachings: Joseph Smith, 95–96
— Joseph Smith
What did Jesus say? “As the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power.” To do what? Why, what the Father did, to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? “To lay down my life as my Father did, that I might take it up again.”
Joseph Smith, Discourse of 7 April 1844, recorded by William Clayton; KFD, p. 30
— Joseph Smith
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