“They are infra-human, a kind of vegetation.”

— Henry David Thoreau , book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)
Context: Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body. They are infra-human, a kind of vegetation. I sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of them going on about me, as a man may become conscious of some of the processes of digestion in a morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called.

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Henry David Thoreau 385

1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitio… 1817–1862

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“They are infra-human, a kind of vegetation.”

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