Hugh Nibley
"It is not surprising that their personal experience of things led both Mormon and his son to embrace a completely pessimistic view of the world. As far as the human race taken by itself in a splendid isolation is concerned, both men talk like existentialists. For them the tragic isolation of man is a fact: men have cut themselves off from God and their state is hopeless. If the father can report that 'a continual scene of wickedness and abominations has been before mine eyes ever since I have been sufficient to behold the ways of man' (Mormon 2:18), the son could only have seen the latter and worst part of the picture." (Since Cumorah, p. 401)