Quote collection
283 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Hundreds and thousands of young people around the world can break through and can make this a better world for all living things. Once young people know the problems and are empowered to act, they have great power to impact the world."
"If plants could be credited with reasoning powers, we would marvel at the imaginative ways they bribe or ensnare other creatures to carry out their wishes."
"Researchers find it very necessary to keep blinkers on. They don't want to admit that the animals they are working with have feelings. They don't want to admit that they might have minds and personalities because that would make it quite difficult for them to do what they do; so we find that within the lab communities there is a very strong resistance among the researchers to admitting that animals have minds, personalities and feelings."
"There are good mothers and bad ones, but most of them are somewhere in-between."
"I think the most important thing is to keep active, and to hope that your mind stays active."
"Our brain is almost the same as the chimps', but we have language, we have electronic communications, we've put people on the moon - we are immensely more intelligent. And yet: how come the being with the most extraordinary intellect ever is destroying its only planet?"
"Some people say, therefore, that violence and war are inevitable. I say rubbish: Our brains are fully capable of controlling instinctive behavior."
"If you educate women, family size tends to go down."
"In a very unscientific statement, I feel that there's been a disconnect between this clever brain and the heart."
"When you meet these outstanding leaders who have been through a programme that empowers them to take positive action, to make things better for people, for animals and for the environment - when you watch them interact and they start brainstorming, you realise you can relax, because they have got it right. They understand that there's more to this life than just money."
"Studying chimps, I came to the conclusion that being evil is something that only humans are capable of. A chimp would never plan to pull another's nails out. The chimps' way of aggression is quick and brutal. I compare them to gang attacks."
"I wasn't trying to be a scientist. I only ever wanted to be a naturalist, like a David Attenborough."
"I thought my life was mapped out. Research, living in the forest, teaching and writing. But in '86 I went to a conference and realised the chimpanzees were disappearing. I had worldwide recognition and a gift of communication. I had to use them."
"At some point, my body will collapse. But I hope that my brain will still be working so that I can carry on with writing."
"....I understood why those who had lived through war or economic disasters, and who had built for themselves a good life and a high standard of living, were rightly proud to be able to provide for their children those things which they themselves had not had. And why their children, inevitably, took those things for granted. It meant that new values and new expectations had crept into our societies along with new standards of living. Hence the materialistic and often greedy and selfish lifestyle of so many young people in the Western world, especially in the United States."
"If we start with chimpanzees, they differ from us with the composition of the DNA by only just over one percent. So, as far as genetics go, we're almost identical. The composition of the blood, the immune system, the structure of the brain - almost identical."
"I shouldn't have named the chimps. It wasn't scientific. I didn't know. I knew nothing. And worse sin of all was that I was ascribing to them emotions like happiness, sadness and so forth."
"If harsher laws are put in place, less will dare to break them."
"I never wanted to give up. I thought I might have to. Especially at the beginning when chimpanzees had never seen a white person before.They gave one look at me and ran away! They were scared, but eventually I got their trust."
"When I go back to Gombe it's to be in that timeless world where it's soft and where life is entwined and you actually see the pattern of nature. I always feel this great spiritual power which I believe is around."