Joseph Smith

Quotes By LDS Prophet Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith was the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Born on December 23, 1805, in Sharon, Vermont, he is considered by members of the Church as a prophet, seer, and revelator. Joseph translated the Book of Mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ and a record of ancient American peoples as was revealed to him by God.

“The Lord gave us power in proportion to the work to be done, and strength according to the race set before us, and grace and help as our needs required.”

Joseph Smith | History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Topics: Grace, Work

“Be merciful and you shall find mercy. Seek to help save souls, not to destroy them: for verily you know, that ‘there is more joy in heaven, over one sinner that repents, than there is over ninety and nine just persons [who] need no repentance.’”

Joseph Smith | Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 77.

Topics: Mercy, Repentance

“The nearer we get to our Heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls.”

Joseph Smith

Topics: Charity, Forgiveness, Nature of God, Service

“If you wish to go where God is, you must be like God, or possess the principles which God possesses, for if we are not drawing towards God in principle, we are going from him and drawing towards the devil. Yes, I am standing in the midst of all kinds of people. Search your hearts, and see if you are like God. I have searched mine, and feel to repent of all my sins.”

Joseph Smith | Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pg. 216-17

Topics: Becoming like God, Nature of God, Perfection

“The inquiry is frequently made of me, ‘Wherein do you differ from others in your religious views?’ In reality and essence we do not differ so far in our religious views, but that we could all drink into one principle of love. One of the grand fundamental principles of ‘Mormonism’ is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may.”

Joseph Smith

Topics: Mormon Culture, Religious Freedom, Truth

“All things whatsoever God in his infinite wisdom has seen fit and proper to reveal to us, while we are dwelling in mortality … are revealed to our spirits precisely as though we had no bodies at all; and those revelations which will save our spirits will save our bodies.”

Joseph Smith | Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 355.

Topics: Nature of God, Personal Revelation, Revelation

“A person may profit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit of revelation, for instance, 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 mind 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 | History of the Church, 3:381

Topics: Holy Ghost, Personal Revelation, Revelation

“No man can receive the Holy Ghost without receiving revelations. The Holy Ghost is a revelator.”

Joseph Smith

Topics: Holy Ghost, Personal Revelation

The coming of the Son of Man never will be, never can be, till the judgments spoken of for this hour are poured out, which judgments are commenced. . . . All this must be done before [the] Son of Man will make his appearance: wars and rumors of wars, signs in the heavens above [and] on the earth beneath, [the] sun turned into darkness [and the] moon to blood, earthquakes in diverse places, oceans heaving beyond their bounds, then one grand sign of the Son of Man in heaven. But what will the world do? They will say it is a planet, a comet, and so forth. Consequently, the Son of Man will come as the sign of [the] coming of the Son of Man.

Joseph Smith | Discourse of 6 April 1843, recorded by Willard Richards; WJS, p. 180

Topics: The Second Coming

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.

Joseph Smith

Topics: Prayer, Truth, Wisdom