Civilization is a concerted effort to remedy the blunders and check the practical joking of the Creator.

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]

A Little Book in C Major, ch. 2, § 2 (1916)
    (Source)

Variant:

CIVILIZATION. A concerted effort to remedy the blunders and check the practical joking of God.
[A Book of Burlesques, "The Jazz Webster" (1924)]