refer in this text to 2 Ne. 1:13, 23
“We live in a day of slick, quiet and clever sins.” (Ezra Taft Benson, A Nation Asleep, p. 44)
“I like that word ‘carefully.’ In other words, don’t shake them, you might awake them.” (Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, Apr. 1965, pp. 124-125)
“An influence is in the world today trying to make people believe that by their own intelligence and by their own power they can gain eternal life… . He does not come and grab you bodily and take you into his territory, but he whispers, ‘Do this little evil,’ and when he succeeds in that, another little evil and another… . He makes you believe that you are gaining something when you are losing… . that is the condition of the world today. Nephi could not have stated it plainer if he had been right here in the world now.” (George Albert Smith, Conference Report, Apr. 1918, pp. 39-41)
“The safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” (C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters, p. 56 as quoted by James E. Faust, Ensign, Nov. 1987, p. 35)
“Every transgression, regardless of how minor, makes us more susceptible to Satan’s influence the next time he tempts us. Satan takes us an inch at a time, deceiving us as to the consequences of so-called minor sins until he captures us in major transgressions. Nephi describes this technique as one of pacifying, lulling, and flattering us away until Satan ‘grasps [us] with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance.’” (Richard C. Edgley, Ensign, Nov. 1994, p. 40)
“Unfortunately the people of this land have not been willing to do this thing, [keep the commandments]. They have turned from righteous ways and the keeping of their bodies clean to ways of evil. Immorality rages, drunkenness prevails from sea to sea, the filthiness of tobacco has debased both men and women, and the stench thereof has ascended to high heaven. By the practice of these evils humanity is binding itself by the chains of hell.” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3:277)