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.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Lovecraft argues that human nature remains fundamentally savage beneath civilization.
- In plain terms
- Humans are essentially wild animals covered by a thin layer of civilization.
- What can you take from it?
- Civilization is a thin cover over innate human savagery.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Is human nature inherently aggressive?
- How thin is our civilization?
Another view
This view is controversial and may reflect bias.
More from H. P. Lovecraft
Four years ago a large part of the civilised world laboured under certain biological fallacies which may, in a sense, be held responsible for the extent and du…
Permalink to quote #22 Man's respect for the imponderables varies according to his mental constitution and environment. Through certain modes of thought and training it can be elevat…
Permalink to quote #24 It was an All-in-One and One-in-All of limitless being and self - not merely a thing of one Space-Time continuum, but allied to the ultimate animating essence …
Permalink to quote #21
Related quotes
We're animals. We're born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.
Barbara KingsolverBarbara Kingsolver quote #6 She [Comedy] it is who proposes the correcting of pretentiousness, of inflation, of dulness, and of the vestiges of rawness and grossness to be found among us.…
George MeredithGeorge Meredith quote #37 It had always been a notion of mine that sanity is like a clearing in the jungle where the humans agree to meet from time to time and behave in certain fixed w…
Wilfrid SheedWilfrid Sheed quote #3