Authors:

The essential quality of an animal is that it seeks its own living, whereas a vegetable has its living brought to it

Henry Mayhew (1851). “London Labour and the London Poor: A Cyclopaedia of the Condition and Earnings of Those that Will Work, Those that Cannot Work, and Those that Will Not Work”, p.158
The essential quality of an animal is that it seeks its own living, whereas a vegetable has its living brought to it