Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Young people, when informed and empowered, when they realize that what they do truly makes a difference, can indeed change the world.
Certainly it's very often true that women tend to be a bit quieter and more prepared to sit there and let the animal tell you things.
I believe that we have more capability than any other creature to control our biological inheritance - and we do so most of the time.
I think the best evenings are when we have messages, things that make us think, but we can also laugh and enjoy each other's company.
Perhaps it's just me, but I am wary of any persons whose belief system is the only thing standing between them and repulsive behavior.
Researchers find it very necessary to keep blinkers on. They don't want to admit that the animals they are working with have feelings.
I was the sort of person who didn't care about hairdressing and clothes and parties and boyfriends. I really wanted to be in the wild.
A good mother is protective but not over-protective. She's patient, she's affectionate, she's playful, but above all she is supportive.
Empathy is really important.. Only when our clever brain and our human heart work together in harmony can we achieve our full potential.
Let us develop respect for all living things. Let us try to replace violence and intolerance with understanding and compassion. And love.
It would be absolutely useless for any of us to work to save wildlife without working to educate the next generation of conservationists.
Every single day, we could be in a motorcar accident, so, we have to carry on with our lives, and not imagine terror around every corner.
The cheapest and most efficient way of slowing down global warming is to protect and restore the forests, particularly the tropical forests
There has been so much underestimating of animal cognition that to perhaps overestimate it, as I probably do, is probably a healthy reaction.
The problem of the chimps is that they can only sit and look. They can't discuss what they feel. All that feeling is trapped within each one.
People say maybe we have a soul and chimpanzees don't. I feel that it's quite possible that if we have souls, chimpanzees have souls as well.
Morality, after all, has nothing to do with selflessness. On the contrary, self-interest is precisely the basis of the categorical imperative.
A sense of calm came over me. More and more often I found myself thinking, "This is where I belong. This is what I came into this world to do.
every individual can make a difference ... if we continue to leave decision making to the so-called decision makers, things will never change.
Although elephants are far more distantly related to us than the great apes, they seem to have evolved similar social and cognitive capacities.
People want to work with somebody who feels shame, who worries about the perceptions of others. Dishonesty is something we don't like in others.
There are many people out there (me being one of them) who can vouch that animals have feelings; they feel compassion and love, as well as pain!
We justify the inequalities by saying some people are just better and smarter than others and the strong should survive and the poor can die off.
Especially now when views are becoming more polarized, we must work to understand each other across political, religious and national boundaries.
Every stage of my life set the scene for the next, and at each point all I had to do was say "yes" and not think too much about the consequences.
Some people say, therefore, that violence and war are inevitable. I say rubbish: Our brains are fully capable of controlling instinctive behavior.
I'm highly political. I spend an awful lot of time in the U.S. trying to influence decision-makers. But I don't feel in tune with British politics.
Successful actors and actresses have to get themselves into their roles before acting. Therefore, you need to really care about what you are saying.
It wasn't God who introduced us to morality; rather, it was the other way around. God was put into place to help us live the way we felt we ought to.
It's the bond between mother and child, which is really for us and for chimps and other primates, the root of all the expressions of social behavior.
When you meet chimps you meet individual personalities. When a baby chimp looks at you it's just like a human baby. We have a responsibility to them.
If we look straight and deep into a chimpanzee's eyes, an intelligent self-assured personality looks back at us. If they are animals, what must we be?
I think the most important thing to do is to be willing to listen, willing to care, and willing to admit mistakes and change your ways for the better!
One cannot watch chimpanzee infants for long without realizing that they have the same emotional need for affection and reassurance as human children.
I've learned that if you want people to join in any kind of conservation effort, you have to help them to care with their hearts, not just their heads.
The refugees flee to protect their families from violence; the Europeans, on the other hand, fear for their jobs that they need to feed their families.
Sometimes I read about someone saying with great authority that animals have no intentions and no feelings, and I wonder, 'Doesn't this guy have a dog?'
I had this wonderful, supportive mother who didn't get mad because of all the earth mucking up my bed. She just said they'd die - they needed the earth.
Studies of reconciliation in primates have demonstrated that if the relationship value increases between two parties they are more willing to make peace.
Our brains have been designed to blur the line between self and other. It is an ancient neural circuitry that marks every mammal, from mouse to elephant.
When humans behave murderously, such as inflicting senseless slaughter of innocents in warfare, we like to blame it on some dark, 'animalistic' instinct.
I learned from my dog long before I went to Gombe that we weren't the only beings with personalities. What the chimps did was help me to persuade others.
When I was two, a dragonfly flew near me. A man knocked it to the ground and trod on it. I remember crying because I'd caused the dragonfly to be killed.
To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us.
When we are bad, we are worse than any primate that I know. And when we are good, we are actually better and more altruistic than any primate that I know.
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.
I'm always pushing for human responsibility. Given that chimpanzees and many other animals are sentient and sapient, then we should treat them with respect.
Words can be said in bitterness and anger, and often there seems to be an element of truth in the nastiness. And words don't go away, they just echo around.
I call the notion that we are nothing but killer apes the Beethoven fallacy. Beethoven was disorganized and messy, and yet his music is the epitome of order.
Chimps don't have language. Humans actively instruct others about how things should be done. Chimpanzees probably pick up cultural traditions by observation.