| The first thing a missionary teaches the
savage is indecency. - Notebook, 1897 Each race determines for itself what indecencies are. Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them. - Notebook, 1896 |
 AI image created by R. Kent Rasmussen |
| Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity--these are strictly confined to man; he
invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They
hide nothing; they are not ashamed. Man, with his soiled mind, covers himself.
He will not even enter a drawing room with his breast and back naked, so
alive are he and his mates to indecent suggestion. Man is "The Animal
that Laughs." But so does the monkey, as Mr. Darwin pointed out; and
so does the Australian bird that is called the laughing jack-ass. No--Man
is the Animal that Blushes. He is the only one that does it--or has occasion
to. - "The Lowest Animal" |
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