Joseph Fielding Smith Sr. (1838–1918) was an American religious leader who served as the sixth president (1901–18) of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church.) He was the nephew of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and was the last president of the LDS Church to have known him personally.
Born in Far West, Missouri, after an anti-Mormon mob assassinated his uncle and his father, Hyrum Smith, in 1844 in Carthage, Illinois, Smith and his mother escaped with the majority of the Mormons to Utah. Made an apostle of the church in 1866, Smith advanced within the hierarchy to the president’s office in 1901.
Smith also served on the city council of Salt Lake City and in the territorial legislature (1865–74, 1880, 1882.) Smith had six wives, but he accepted the decision to give up polygamy reached by church leaders in 1890 and testified before a U.S. Senate committee that Mormons no longer accepted the practice.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Joseph F. Smith
The knowledge of truth, combined with the proper regard for it and it’s faithful observance, constitutes true education.
—Joseph F. Smith
Topics: Truth
We cannot be saved until we have risen above all our enemies, not the least of which is ignorance.
—Joseph F. Smith
Topics: Ignorance
The mere stuffing of the mind with a knowledge of facts is not education.
—Joseph F. Smith
Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God.
—Joseph F. Smith
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Brigham Young American Mormon Leader
Robert E. Lee American Military General
Raymond Chandler American Novelist
Fred Astaire American Dancer, Singer
David O. McKay American Mormon Religious Leader
James LeVoy Sorenson American Businessman
Stephen Covey American Self-help Author
Glenn Beck American Mormon Children’s Books Writer
Orson Scott Card American Author
Eldridge Cleaver American Author, Activist