[Jim Swarthout]

I didn't compile the list. I just saw it on another forum and pasted it here. I think if I were compiling a list it would have to include the following statement which JS wrote to 19 year old Nancy Rigdon after she rebuffed his marriage solicitations in 1842. I've seen this quote used by present leaders regularly out of context, but in its historical context, I find it offensive:

"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. But we cannot keep all the commandments without first knowing them, and we cannot expect to know all, or more than we now know unless we comply with or keep those we have already received. That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another." (Joseph Smith to Nancy Rigdon, 11 April 1842)