"As to the human race. There are many pretty and winning things about the human race. It is perhaps the poorest of all the inventions of all the gods but it has never suspected it once. There is nothing prettier than its naive and complacent appreciation of itself. It comes out frankly and proclaims without bashfulness or any sign of a blush that it is the noblest work of God. It has had a billion opportunities to know better, but all signs fail with this ass. I could say harsh things about it but I cannot bring myself to do it-it is like hitting a child."

Source: Mark Twain, Charles Neider (1987). “The outrageous Mark Twain: some lesser-known but extraordinary works : with Reflections on religion now in book form for the first time”, Doubleday Books