A Quote by Malcolm Gladwell

It is useful to compare the Branch Davidians with the Mormons of the mid-nineteenth century. The Mormons were vilified in those years in large part because Joseph Smith believed in polygamy.

Malcolm Gladwell

Quote Topics

Because Believed Branch Century Compare Joseph Joseph Smith Large Large Part Mid Nineteenth Century Part Polygamy Smith Those Useful Were Years

Quote Author

Malcolm Gladwell
Canadian - Author
Born: September 3, 1963

I'm as much influenced by Joseph Smith and the Mormons as I am, more so, than by Eliot. Actually, I'm much more influenced by the poetry of the Mormons.

Marguerite Young

The principle of plural marriage was revealed to the Mormons amid much secrecy. Dark clouds hovered over the church in the early 1840s, after rumors spread that its founder, Joseph Smith, had taken up the practice of polygamy. While denying the charge in public, by 1843 Smith had shared a revelation with his closest disciples.

Scott Anderson

The 19th century Mormons, including some of my ancestors, were not eager to practice plural marriage. They followed the example of Brigham Young, who expressed his profound negative feelings when he first had this principle revealed to him. The Mormons of the 19th century who practiced plural marriage, male and female, did so because they felt it was a duty put upon them by God.

Dallin H. Oaks

We were now, as I before mentioned, upon this St. Joseph's trail. It was evident, by the traces, that large parties were a few days in advance of us; and as we too supposed them to be Mormons, we had some apprehension of interruption.

Francis Parkman

First of all, with Mitt Romney, I was saying to the Mormons - the Mormons are very smart people.

Donald Trump

The Mormons are very smart people. I know many Mormons.

Donald Trump

The Mormons even baptized Anne Frank. It took Ernest Michel, then chairman of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, three years to get Mormons to agree to stop proxy-baptizing Holocaust victims.

Maureen Dowd

You won't be surprised to know, therefore, that the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses are the same organisation at the top level where the Elders of the Mormons and the leaders of the Watchtower Society operate a very different agenda to the one their followers believe.

David Icke

The Mormons had a divine revelation in favour of polygamy, but under pressure from the United States Government they discovered that the revelation was not binding.

Bertrand Russell

The term Christian used to be a pejorative. Back in the day, Christians were persecuted; however, over time, it became one of the word's biggest religions. Same thing with the term Mormons in the religious area. Mormons didn't want to be called that. They wanted to be called Latter-day Saints. It's only been in recent decades that they kind of shifted that position and took ownership of it.

Simon Tam

The grand reason of the burst of public sentiment in anathemas upon Christ and his disciples, causing his crucifixion, was evidently based upon polygamy, according to the testimony of the philosophers who rose in that age. A belief in the doctrine of a plurality of wives caused the persecution of Jesus and his followers. We might almost think they were 'Mormons.'

Jedediah M. Grant

I think Mormons are good, moral people, but they're not part of Christianity.

Robert Jeffress

In the government's eyes, the Branch Davidians were a threat.

Malcolm Gladwell

It's hard to know how many rank-and-file nineteenth-century church members accepted the idea that Jesus was married to multiple women and fathered children, but the idea received support from many high-ranking leaders, including Brigham Young and Joseph F. Smith.