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We must recognise the essential underlaying savagery in the animal called man, and return to older and sounder principles of national life and defense. We must realise that man's nature will remain the same so long as he remains man; that civilisation is but a slight coverlet beneath which the dominant beast sleeps lightly and ever ready to awake.

— H. P. Lovecraft At the Root (1918)

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More quotes by H. P. Lovecraft

The only saving grace of the present is that it's too damned stupid to question the past very closely.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

The poetical tendency of the present and of the preceding century has been divided in a manner singularly curious.

The Allowable Rhyme (1915)

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927)

Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: H. P. Lovecraft (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.