Joseph Smith Jr Quotes
I came across a website today and it's pretty cool. I can't believe I never saw it before today. Anyway, it has a pretty good collection of quotes from Joseph Smith. Here are some of the more interesting ones that tell us something about his beliefs and character.
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Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations, and where is our religion? We have none.
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The best way to obtain truth and wisdom is not to ask from books, but to go to God in prayer, and obtain divine teaching.
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All things whatsoever God in his infinite wisdom has seen fit and proper to reveal to us, while we are dwelling in mortality, in regard to our mortal bodies, are revealed to us in the abstract, and independent of affinity of this mortal tabernacle, but are revealed to our spirits precisely as though we had no bodies at all.
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Sidney is not as used to it as I am
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- Smith's comments about Sidney Rigdon's feebleness after the closing of a vision which they both beheld and Smith dictated into Section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants
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That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. God said, 'Thou shalt not kill'; at another time He said, 'Thou shalt utterly destroy.' This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted—by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire.
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You ask the learned doctors why they say the world was made out of nothing; and they will answer, 'Doesn't the Bible say He created the world?' And they infer, from the word create, that it must have been made out of nothing. Now, the word create came from the word baurau which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence, we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos—chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory. Element had an existence from the time he had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning, and can have no end. . . . [T]he mind of man—the immortal spirit. Where did it come from? All learned men and doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning; but it is not so: the very idea lessens man in my estimation. I do not believe the doctrine; I know better. Hear it, all ye ends of the world; for God has told me so . . . We say that God himself is a self-existent being. Who told you so? It is correct enough; but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principles? Man does exist upon the same principles. God made a tabernacle and put a spirit into it, and it became a living soul. . . . How does it read in the Hebrew? It does not say in the Hebrew that God created the spirit of man. It says 'God made man out of the earth and put into him Adam's spirit, and so became a living body.' The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is [co-eternal] with God himself. I know that my testimony is true . . . Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end. That is good logic. That which has a beginning may have an end. There never was a time when there were not spirits; for they are [co-eternal] with our Father in heaven. . . . I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man—the immortal part, because it has no beginning. Suppose you cut it in two; then it has a beginning and an end; but join it again, and it continues one eternal round. So with the spirit of man. As the Lord liveth, if it had a beginning, it will have an end. All the fools and learned and wise men from the beginning of creation, who say that the spirit of man had a beginning, prove that it must have an end; and if that doctrine is true, then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, I might with boldness proclaim from the house-tops that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself.
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One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may.
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We should gather all the good and true principles in the world and treasure them up, or we shall not come out true Mormons.
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If I revealed all that has been made known to me, scarcely a man on this stand would stay with me." and "Brethren, if I were to tell you all I know of the kingdom of God, I do know that you would rise up and kill me.
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No unhallowed hand can stop this work from progressing. Persecutions may rage; mobs may combine; armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country and sounded in every ear; till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say, 'The work is done' ...
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There has been a great difficulty in getting anything into the heads of this generation. It has been like splitting hemlock knots with a corn-dodger for a wedge and a pumpkin for a beetle.
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I teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves.
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I love these ones!
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Go back and tell your general to withdraw his troops or I will send them to hell
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- Smith's reply to a truce-flag-bearing representative of a militia mob of 3,500 men who told the camp of a couple hundred Mormons, "We are going to wipe you out."
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I am not afraid to die. Shoot away. I have endured so much oppression, I am weary of life; and kill me, if you please. I am a strong man, however, and with my own natural weapons could soon level both of you.
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Because the children are praying for me.
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- Smith's reply when asked, "How do you dare think you are safe in the midst of your enemies?"
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I am going like a lamb to the slaughter, but I am calm as a summer's morning. I have a conscience void of offense toward God and toward all men. If they take my life, I shall die an innocent man, and my blood shall cry from the ground for vengeance, and it shall be said of me, 'He was murdered in cold blood!
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- Smith's comments upon deciding to go to Carthage for incarceration and to face legal prosecution.
- Cried out by Smith as he fell from a second story window of the Carthage jail while being shot by a mob both inside his room and outside of the jail.
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10-19-2005, 07:25 PM
If they are not attacking you, that means they are not worried about you. ~ Kevin Madden ~ 
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