Noam Chomsky
Linguist, Philosopher, Activist
"It's as if we're higher apes who had a language faculty inserted."
Apes quotes
Apes
103 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Cornelia Otis Skinner
Actress
"It is disturbing to discover in oneself these curious revelations of the validity of the Darwinian theory. If it is true that we have sprung from the ape, there are occasions when my own spring appears not to have been very far."
Samuel Beckett
Playwright, Novelist
"People are bloody ignorant apes."
John Stuart Mill
Philosopher, Political Economist
"He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision."
Paul Watson
Journalist
"Almost all theological thought is anthropocentric and I just cannot buy into the anthropocentric ideology. Basically we're a bunch of conceited apes."
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Topics related to Apes
Browse quotes that often appear alongside apes — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Apes quotes (page 1 of 6)
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"The devil is God's ape!"
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"We're living on the Planet of the Apes. Is that funny or serious?"
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"It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous."
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"Do you take me for a sponge, my lord? hamlet: Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. rosencrantz: I understand you not, my lord. hamlet: I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear."
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"It's clearly possible for a something to acquire higher intelligence than its ancestors: we evolved to be smarter than our ape-like ancestors, and Einstein was smarter than his parents."
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"He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him has need of no other faculty than that of ape-like imitation."
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"Once you were apes, yet even now man is more of an ape than any of the apes."
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"I'd rather have an ape for an ancestor than a bishop."
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"While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats."
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"I reject the idea that humans are superior to other life forms. . . Man is just an ape with an overly developed sense of superiority."
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"Even as the nineteenth century had to come to grips with the notion of human descent from apes, we must now come to terms with the fact that those apes were stoned apes."
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"Darwin was Wrong! Man's still an ape."
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"The irrational in the human has something about it altogether repulsive and terrible, as we see in the maniac, the miser, the drunkard or the ape."
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"Man is more ape than many of the apes."
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"The question is this - Is man an ape or an angel? My Lord, I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence these new fanged theories."
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"Conformity is the ape of harmony."
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"Habit, if wisely and skillfully formed, becomes truly a second nature; but unskillfully and unmethodically depicted, it will be as it were an ape of nature, which imitates nothing to the life, but only clumsily and awkwardly"
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"For let us not underestimate the Christian: the Christian, false to the point of innocence, is far above the ape-regarding Christians, a well known theory of descent becomes a mere compliment."
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"Being abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man."
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"Is man an ape or an angel? Now I am on the side of the angels."
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