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So Long As We Continued To Attach More Importance To Our Own Narrow Group Membership Than To The 'global Village' We Would Propagate Prejudice And Ignorance. There Was Absolutely No Harm In Being Part Of A Small Group - Indeed, With Our Hunter-gatherer Band Mentality It Gave Comfort, Provided Us With An Inner Circle Of Friends Who Could Be Utterly Trusted, Who Were Absolutely Reliable. It Helped Give Us Peace Of Mind. The Danger Came Only From Drawing That Sharp Line, Digging That Ditch, Laying That Minefield, Between Our Own Group And Any Other Group That Thought Differently.

-Jane Goodall

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So Long As We

Jane Goodall

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So Long As We Continued To Attach More Importance To Our Own Narrow Group Membership Than To The 'global Village' We Would Propagate Prejudice And Ignorance. There Was Absolutely No Harm In Being Part Of A Small Group - Indeed, With Our Hunter-gatherer Band Mentality It Gave Comfort, Provided Us With An Inner Circle Of Friends Who Could Be Utterly Trusted, Who Were Absolutely Reliable. It Helped Give Us Peace Of Mind. The Danger Came Only From Drawing That Sharp Line, Digging That Ditch, Laying That Minefield, Between Our Own Group And Any Other Group That Thought Differently.

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I Didn't Want To Become A Professor Or Get Tenure Or Teach Or Anything. All I Wanted To Do Was Get A Degree Because Louis Leakey Said I Needed One, Which Was Right, And Once I Succeeded I Could Get Back To The Field.

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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?

Successful Actors And Actresses Have To Get Themselves Into Their Roles Before Acting. Therefore, You Need To Really Care About What You Are Saying.

Chimpanzees Have Given Me So Much. The Long Hours Spent With Them In The Forest Have Enriched My Life Beyond Measure. What I Have Learned From Them Has Shaped My Understanding Of Human Behavior, Of Our Place In Nature.

If You Look Through All The Different Cultures. Right From The Earliest, Earliest Days With The Animistic Religions, We Have Sought To Have Some Kind Of Explanation For Our Life, For Our Being, That Is Outside Of Our Humanity.

We Are Always Talking About How We Can Get More Environmental And Humanitarian Education. It Is About Listening To The Voice Of Young People - How They Feel, And What Would Be Most Meaningful For Them.

We Find Animals Doing Things That We, In Our Arrogance, Used To Think Was "just Human".

We Are Unique. Chimpanzees Are Unique. Dogs Are Unique. But We Humans Are Just Not As Different As We Used To Think.

We, As Humans, Have Actually Developed A Sense Of Social Responsibility. We Have Gone Beyond Our Basic Instincts.

My Favorite Animals Are Dogs.

You Better Not Mess With Chimps. They Are Much Stronger Than Humans.

It Has Actually Been Suggested That Warfare May Have Been The Principle Evolutionary Pressure That Created The Huge Gap Between The Human Brain And That Of Our Closest Living Relatives, The Anthropoid Apes. Whole Groups Of Hominids With Inferior Brains Could Not Win Wars And Were Therefore Exterminated.

If A Chimp Who Has Been Abused Horribly By Humans Can Help A Human Friend In A Time Of Need, How Much More Should We Help The Animals - And Other People For That Matter - In Their Time Of Need?

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.

Lasting Change Is A Series Of Compromises. And Compromise Is All Right, As Long Your Values Don't Change.

I Don't Think Anybody Has The Right To A Huge Family. There's Already More People On The Planet Than Our Natural Resources Can Even Support, And If Everybody Were To Have A High Standard Of Living, We Need Three Or Four Or Five New Planets To Provide The Resources. And This Cannot Be, So Something Has To Change.

They Used To Ask: "how Will This Decision That We Make Today Affect Our People In The Future?" Now We Make Decisions Based On: "how Does It Affect Me, Now? How Does It Affect The Next Shareholders Meeting, Three Months Ahead? How Does It Affect My Next Political Campaign?"

It Made Me Feel Particularly Sickened To Know That This Kind Of Callous Attitude Toward Animals Is Repeated Again And Again In Laboratories Around This Country.

We Seem To Have Lost The Wisdom Of The Indigenous People, Which Dictated That In Any Major Decision, The First Consideration Was 'how Will This Decision We're Making Today Affect Our People In The Future? These Days, Decisions Are Made Based On The Bottom Line.

Someday We Shall Look Back On This Dark Era Of Agriculture And Shake Our Heads. How Could We Have Ever Believed That It Was A Good Idea To Grow Our Food With Poisons?

You Aren't Going To Save The World On Your Own. But You Might Inspire A Generation Of Kids To Save It For All Of Us. You Would Be Amazed At What Inspired Children Can Do.

People Say To Me So Often, 'jane How Can You Be So Peaceful When Everywhere Around You People Want Books Signed, People Are Asking These Questions And Yet You Seem Peaceful,' And I Always Answer That It Is The Peace Of The Forest That I Carry Inside.

But Let Us Not Forget That Human Love And Compassion Are Equally Deeply Rooted In Our Primate Heritage, And In This Sphere Too Our Sensibilities Are Of A Higher Order Of Magnitude Than Those Of Chimpanzees.

Language Allows Us To Talk About The Past And Plan The Future. We Can Teach Children About Things That Are Not Present. And Above All, We Can Bring People With Different Backgrounds And Different Knowledge Together To Discuss Our Problems. This Actually Gives Me Hope. I Still Think We Are Smart Enough To Not Destroy Planet Earth, Our Only Home.

I Had Never Been Able To Believe That God Would Give Us Poor Frail Humans Only One Chance At Making It -- That We Would Be Assigned To Some Kind Of Hell Because We Failed During One Experience Of Mortal Life. ... So The Concepts Of Karma And Reincarnation Made Logical Sense To Me.

The Greatest Danger To Our Future Is Apathy.

Be Assured That Our Individual Actions, Collectively, Make A Huge Difference.

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.

Every Individual Can Make A Difference Every Day By Making Conscious Choices.

Making A Difference

When You Borrow You Plan To Pay Back. We're Stealing From Our Children - So Many People Have No Intention Of Paying Back.

I Was Even Accused Of Teaching The Chimps How To Fish For Termites Which I Mean That Would Have Been Such A Brilliant Coup.

As Thy Days, So Shall Thy Strength Be.

If You Consciously Say 'i Won't Do It!' To Yourself, Then You Have A Good Chance That You Won't.

If You Educate Women, Family Size Tends To Go Down.

As Human Beings, We Can Encompass A Vague Feeling Of What The Universe Is, And All In This Funny Little Brain Here - So There Has To Be Something More Than Just Brain, It Has To Be Something To Do With Spirit As Well.

I Am Living In The Africa I Have Always Longed For, Always Felt Stirring In My Blood.

I Think The Most Important Thing Is To Keep Active, And To Hope That Your Mind Stays Active.

Is It Not Possible That The Chimpanzees Are Responding To Some Feeling Like Awe? A Feeling Generated By The Mystery Of Water; Water That Seems Alive, Always Rushing Past Yet Never Going, Always The Same Yet Ever Different. Was It Perhaps Similar Feelings Of Awe That Gave Rise To The First Animistic Religions, The Worship Of The Elements And The Mysteries Of Nature Over Which There Was No Control? Only When Our Prehistoric Ancestors Developed Language Would It Have Been Possible To Discuss Such Internal Feelings And Create A Shared Religion.

I Feel A Desperation To Make People See What We Are Doing To The Environment, What A Mess We Are Making Of Our World. At This Point, The More People I Reach, The More I Accomplish. ... I Miss Gombe And My Wonderful Years In The Forest But If I Were To Go Back To That, I Wouldn't Feel I Was Doing What I Should Be Doing.

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There Are Good Mothers And Bad Ones, But Most Of Them Are Somewhere In-between.

I Don't Spend That Much Time Being Introspective, Believe It Or Not. All I Know Is That I Grew Up Not Questioning God Because That's How You Are. God Was There Like The Birds And The Wind.

Animals Have Personalities And Minds And Emotions.

Science Demands Objective Factual Evidence - Proof; Spiritual Experience Is Subjective And Leads To Faith.

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!

I Don't Even Think Of Chimps As Animals. I Think Of Them As Beings.

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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.

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.

To Me, Trees Are Living Beings And They Have Their Own Sort Of Personalities.

Your Life Matters. You Can't Live Through A Day Without Making An Impact On The World. And What's Most Important Is To Think About The Impact Of Your Actions On The World Around You.

Women Tend To Be More Intuitive, Or To Admit To Being Intuitive, And Maybe The Hard Science Approach Isn't So Attractive. The Way That Science Is Taught Is Very Cold. I Would Never Have Become A Scientist If I Had Been Taught Like That.

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If You Do Microcredit With Men, They Tend To Quickly Drink It. They Don't Pay You Back.

Every Individual Matters And Has A Role To Play In This Life On Earth.

The Hardest Part Of Returning To A Truly Healthy Environment May Be Changing The Current Totally Unsustainable Heavy-meat-eating Culture Of Increasing Numbers Of People Around The World. But We Must Try. We Must Make A Start, One By One.

Other People Have Talked About Chimpanzees Being A Window Into The Past, Which I Suppose Is True, In A Way.

I Think We Must Cling To The Hope That We Can See In The Great Heroism, The Bravery Of The Firemen And Policemen, And The Outpouring Of Caring And Concern That Has Come Pouring In From Around The World.

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Only If We Understand, Can We Care. Only If We Care, We Will Help. Only If We Help, We Shall Be Saved.

Here We Are, Arguably The Most Intelligent Being That's Ever Walked Planet Earth, With This Extraordinary Brain ... And Yet We're Destroying The Only Home We Have.

There Would Be Very Little Point In My Exhausting Myself And Other Conservationists Themselves In Trying To Protect Animals And Habitats If We Weren't At The Same Time Raising Young People To Be Better Stewards.

Louis [leakey] Was Anxious To Initiate A Scientific Study Of These Chimpanzees. It Would Be Difficult, He Emphasized, For Nothing Was Known; There Were No Guidelines For Such A Field Study; And The Habitat Was Remote And Rugged. Dangerous Wild Animals Would Be Living There, And Chimpanzees Themselves Were Considered At Least Four Times Stronger Than Humans. I Remember Wondering What Kind Of Scientist He Would Find For Such A Herculean Task.

I Believe That The Tragedy [like Terror Attack] That's Caused So Much Grief And Suffering To So Many Thousands And Thousands Of People Has Also Served As A Call To Action, Because Many People Now Are Re-examining Their Own Value Systems, And The Churches, Temples, Mosques And Cathedrals Are Packed To Overflowing For The First Time In Years.

I Got To Africa. I Got The Opportunity To Go And Learn, Not About Any Animal, But Chimpanzees. I Was Living In My Dream World, The Forest In Gombe National Park In Tanzania. It Was Tanganyika When I Began.

I Love To Write - It Is A Great Source Of Reflection, Especially As I Continue To Meet Many New Inspiring People.

Some People Actually Do Not Like Animals - Hard For Me To Understand, But True.

It's Not A Pretty Picture, But There Are Reasons For Hope.

Farm Animals Are Far More Aware And Intelligent Than We Ever Imagined And, Despite Having Been Bred As Domestic Slaves, They Are Individual Beings In Their Own Right. As Such, They Deserve Our Respect. And Our Help. Who Will Plead For Them If We Are Silent? Thousands Of People Who Say They ‘love’ Animals Sit Down Once Or Twice A Day To Enjoy The Flesh Of Creatures Who Have Been Treated So With Little Respect And Kindness Just To Make More Meat.

I Wanted To Talk To The Animals Like Dr. Dolittle.

Especially Females And The Younger Ones Like To Be With Somebody Who Is Wise.

Even When It Comes To Things Like Wars Over Oil, Which May Seem Like A Whole Different Ball Game, There Are Still Comparisons One Can Draw: Chimps Fight For Their Territory; They Fight For The Resources Within That Territory, So It Does Relate In A Way.

The Voice Of The Natural World Would Be, "could You Please Give Us Space And Leave Us Alone To Get Along With Our Own Lives And Our Own Ways, Because We Actually Know Much Better How To Do It Then When You Start Interfering."

From My Perspective, I Absolutely Believe In A Greater Spiritual Power, Far Greater Than I Am, From Which I Have Derived Strength In Moments Of Sadness Or Fear. That's What I Believe, And It Was Very, Very Strong In The Forest.

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.

I Believe That Accurate Knowledge Is Very, Very Important, But Find That Out In Free Time. Don't Let It Take Over Every Hour Of The Day. Perhaps Most Important, Talk About It.

We Have Language And They Do Not. Chimps Communicate By Embracing, Patting, Looking - All These Things. And They Have Lots Of Sounds. But They Cannot Sit And Discuss. They Cannot Teach About Things That Are Not Present, As Far As We Know.

When I Was A Child, The African Forest Sounded Like A Dream To Me, Because It Was Full Of Animals And It Was Wild.

Of Course Animals Have A Personality And Emotions.

Surely It Should Be A Matter Of Moral Responsibility That We Humans, Different From Other Animals Mainly By Virtue Of Our More Highly Developed Intellect And, With It, Our Greater Capacity For Understanding And Compassion, Ensure That Medical Progress Slowly Detaches Its Roots From The Manure Of Non-human Animal Suffering And Despair.

I Believe Sharing Stories And Experiences Is The Best Way To Teach People To Empathize!

We Have The Choice To Use The Gift Of Our Life To Make The World A Better Place--or Not To Bother

We Can't Leave People In Abject Poverty, So We Need To Raise The Standard Of Living For 80% Of The World's People, While Bringing It Down Considerably For The 20% Who Are Destroying Our Natural Resources.

Just Remember--if You Are Really And Truly Determined To Work With Animals, Somehow, Either Now Or Later, You Will Find A Way To Do It. But You Have To Want It Desperately, Work Hard, Take Advantage Of An Opportunity--and Never Give Up.

I Do Not Want To Discuss Evolution In Such Depth, However, Only Touch On It From My Own Perspective: From The Moment When I Stood On The Serengeti Plains Holding The Fossilized Bones Of Ancient Creatures In My Hands To The Moment When, Staring Into The Eyes Of A Chimpanzee, I Saw A Thinking, Reasoning Personality Looking Back. You May Not Believe In Evolution, And That Is All Right. How We Humans Came To Be The Way We Are Is Far Less Important Than How We Should Act Now To Get Out Of The Mess We Have Made For Ourselves.

What Makes Us Human, I Think, Is An Ability To Ask Questions, A Consequence Of Our Sophisticated Spoken Language.

But Does That Mean That War And Violence Are Inevitable? I Would Argue Not Because We Have Also Evolved This Amazingly Sophisticated Intellect, And We Are Capable Of Controlling Our Innate Behavior A Lot Of The Time.

Let Us Develop Respect For All Living Things. Let Us Try To Replace Violence And Intolerance With Understanding And Compassion. And Love.

The Best Relationship You Can Have With A Chimpanzee Is Total Mutual Trust.

Best Relationship

Chimps Are Far Too Much Human To Be My Favorite Animal.

We Have A Responsibility Toward The Other Life-forms Of Our Planet Whose Continued Existence Is Threatened By The Thoughtless Behavior Of Our Own Human Species. . . . Environmental Responsibility – For If There Is No God, Then, Obviously, It Is Up To Us To Put Things Right.

Some People Say, Therefore, That Violence And War Are Inevitable. I Say Rubbish: Our Brains Are Fully Capable Of Controlling Instinctive Behavior.

War Had Always Seemed To Me To Be A Purely Human Behavior. Accounts Of Warlike Behavior Date Back To The Very First Written Records Of Human History; It Seemed To Be An Almost Universal Characteristic Of Human Groups.

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.

I Believe The Only Hope For Mankind Lies In The Hands Of Our Young People.

We Learn The Social Norms Of Our Society And Modify Our Behaviour Accordingly.

Without The Heart To Ground It And Open It To Who We Really Can Be As Human Beings, The Brain Is A Very Dangerous Machine. A Machine That Is Saying: We've Got To Have Economic Growth; We've Got To Have Unending Economic Growth, Otherwise Societies Will Collapse. And Yet There Should Be Something Saying: Wait A Minute, This Isn't Going To Work.

And I Thought How Sad It Was That, For All Our Sophisticated Intellect, For All Our Noble Aspirations, Our Aggressive Behavior Was Not Just Similar In Many Ways To That Of The Chimpanzees - It Was Even Worse. Worse Because Human Beings Have The Potential To Rise Above Their Baser Instincts, Whereas Chimpanzees Probably Do Not.

Animals Are As Deserving Of A Place On This Planet As We Are, And The Difference Between Us Is That Humans Have A Voice They Can Use To Help The Animal Cause, And It Is Up To All Of Us To Use It To Make A Positive Difference!

....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.

Realize That Change - Whilst We Want It To Happen Fast - Is Usually The Result Of A Great Deal Of Work, And Often Comes As A Result Of A Series Of Compromises (so Long As We Do Not Compromise Our Values).

The Least I Can Do Is Speak Out For Those Who Cannot Speak For Themselves.

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.

I Still Think We Are Smart Enough To Not Destroy Planet Earth, Our Only Home.

Children Can Change The World.

Changing The World

My Mission Is To Create A World Where We Can Live In Harmony With Nature. And Can I Do That Alone? No. So There Is A Whole Army Of Youth That Can Do It. So I Suppose My Mission Is To Reach As Many Of Those Young People As I Can Through My Own Efforts.

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.

We Have Turned Away From The Natural World. Instead, It's All About Money And Power.

Money And Power

The More We Spread The Word, The Further It Will Go And More It Will Change!

Of Course We're All Programmed Genetically To Some Extent. But The "selfish Gene" Thesis Doesn't Explain Everything.

I've Got Different Ideas Of Complete Happiness. But One Is Being By Myself Out In A Forest, Completely Happy. Another Is Walking With A Dog In Some Nice Place. And Three Is Sitting Around Preferably A Fire, But Not Necessarily, And Drinking Red Wine With Friends And Telling Stories.

You Know The Old Expression "we Haven't Inherited The World From Our Parents, We've Borrowed It From Our Children"? Well It's Just Not True. We Haven't Borrowed Anything.

My Mother Always Taught Us That If People Don't Agree With You, The Important Thing Is To Listen To Them. But If You've Listened To Them Carefully And You Still Think That You're Right, Then You Must Have The Courage Of Your Convictions.

Anyone Who Tries To Improve The Lives Of Animals Invariably Comes In For Criticism From Those Who Believe Such Efforts Are Misplaced In A World Of Suffering Humanity.

In Tanzania, The Chimps Are Isolated In A Very Tiny Patch Of Forest. I Flew Over It 13 Years Ago And Realized That, Basically, All The Trees Had Gone, That People All Around The Park Are Struggling To Survive. It Became Very Clear That There Was No Way To Protect The Chimps While The People Were In This Dire Circumstance.

It's Up To Us To Save The World For Tomorrow: It's Up To You And Me.

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.

The Chimps' Way Of Aggression Is Quick And Brutal. I Compare Them To Gang Attacks.

I Want To Change Awareness.

In A Very Unscientific Statement, I Feel That There's Been A Disconnect Between This Clever Brain And The Heart.

I Had A Wonderful Teacher About Animal Behavior - My Dog Rusty. He Taught Me That Animals Have Personalities, Minds, And Feelings.

If You Work Hard And Be Persistent, You Will Achieve Whatever You Want To Do.

It's Been Proven By Quite A Few Studies That Plants Are Good For Our Psychological Development. If You Green An Area, The Rate Of Crime Goes Down. Torture Victims Begin To Recover When They Spend Time Outside In A Garden With Flowers. So We Need Them, In Some Deep Psychological Sense, Which I Don't Suppose Anybody Really Understands Yet.

A Good Mother Is Protective But Not Over-protective. She's Patient, She's Affectionate, She's Playful, But Above All She Is Supportive.

For Those Who Have Experienced The Joy Of Being Alone With Nature There Is Really Little Need For Me To Say Much More; For Those Who Have Not, No Words Of Mine Can Ever Describe The Powerful, Almost Mystical Knowledge Of Beauty And Eternity That Come, Suddenly, And All Unexpected.

If You Catch Somebody Doing Something Wrong, He Will Just Cringe Away And Curl Up. He Will Not Listen Anymore. Instead, He Will Think Of How He Can Counterattack.

I Don't Care Two Hoots About Civilization. I Want To Wander In The Wild.

Become As Knowledgeable As Possible.

I Don't Have Any Idea Of Who Or What God Is. But I Do Believe In Some Great Spiritual Power. I Feel It Particularly When I’m Out In Nature. It’s Just Something That's Bigger And Stronger Than What I Am Or What Anybody Is. I Feel It. And It's Enough For Me.

I Urge You To Read Eternal Treblinka And Think Deeply About Its Important Message.

That's What Keeps Me Going. Everywhere I Go There Are Young People With Shining Eyes Wanting To Tell Me, "dr. Jane, We're Going To Make The World A Better Place."

If Everybody On The Planet Today Had The Same Standard Of Living As The Average European Or American, We Would Need Three New Planets. But We Don't Even Have One New Planet. We Have This One, And With The Way We're Polluting It, The Shrinking Water Resources, The Climate Change, The Experimentation With Plants... The Outlook Is Grim.

We Can Learn To Suppress Our Feelings For Other Reasons.

And Always I Have This Feeling--which May Not Be True At All--that I Am Being Used As A Messenger.

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.

It May Sound Trite, But Young People Really Are The Future.

I Think I'd Like To Be Remembered As Someone Who Really Helped People To Have A Little Humility And Realize That We Are Part Of The Animal Kingdom Not Separated From It.

I Would Never Say I Was An Icon, But So Many People Have Said I Am, So I Suppose I Am. I Mean, I Can't Not Be What Everyone Says I Am. But I Don't Feel Like An Icon.

Farm Animals Feel Pleasure And Sadness, Excitement And Resentment, Depression, Fear, And Pain. They Are Far More Aware And Intelligent Than We Ever Imagined...they Are Individuals In Their Own Right.

My Hope For The Future Is That We Learn Wisdom Again.

Hope For The Future

There Is A Lot Of Corruption All Over The World And Not Only When It Comes To Illegal Wildlife Trade! There Are A Few Ways To Ensure This Stops: If There Are No Customers, There Will Be No Trade.

One Cannot Watch Chimpanzee Infants For Long Without Realizing That They Have The Same Emotional Need For Affection And Reassurance As Human Children.

There Are An Awful Lot Of Scientists Today Who Believe That Before Very Long We Shall Have Unraveled All The Secrets Of The Universe. There Will Be No Puzzles Anymore. To Me, It'd Be Really, Really Tragic Because I Think One Of The Most Exciting Things Is This Feeling Of Mystery, Feeling Of Awe, The Feeling Of Looking At A Little Live Thing And Being Amazed By It And How It Has Emerged Through These Hundreds Of Years Of Evolution And There It Is And It Is Perfect And Why.

Chimpanzees Can Be Quite Political.

The Awful Thing Is We Don't Respect Each Other.

Respect Each Other

If Only We Can Overcome Cruelty, To Human And Animal, With Love And Compassion We Shall Stand At The Threshold Of A New Era In Human Moral And Spiritual Evolution - And Realize, At Last, Our Most Unique Quality: Humanity.

Chimps Are Unbelievably Like Us - In Biological, Non-verbal Ways. They Can Be Loving And Compassionate And Yet They Have A Dark Side... 98 Per Cent Of Our Dna Is The Same. The Difference Is That We Have Developed Language - We Can Teach About Things That Aren't There, Plan For The Future, Discuss, Share Ideas

Chimpanzees, More Than Any Other Living Creature, Have Helped Us To Understand That There Is No Sharp Line Between Humans And The Rest Of The Animal Kingdom. It's A Very Blurry Line, And It's Getting More Blurry All The Time.

Chimps Are Very Quick To Have A Sudden Fight Or Aggressive Episode, But They're Equally As Good At Reconciliation.

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.

In What Terms Should We Think Of These Beings, Nonhuman Yet Possessing So Very Many Human-like Characteristics? How Should We Treat Them? Surely We Should Treat Them With The Same Consideration And Kindness As We Show To Other Humans; And As We Recognize Human Rights, So Too Should We Recognize The Rights Of The Great Apes? Yes.

Lasting Change Is A Series Of Compromises.

A Chimp Would Never Plan To Pull Another's Nails Out.

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.

I Wouldn't Even Like To Begin To Define God - I Have Absolutely No Idea. But What I Feel, And What Touches Me, Is A Great Spiritual Power, Which I Don't Even Want To Name. If I Had To, I Would Say God, Because I Don't Know Any Other.

My Family Has Very Strong Women. My Mother Never Laughed At My Dream Of Africa, Even Though Everyone Else Did Because We Didn't Have Any Money, Because Africa Was The 'dark Continent', And Because I Was A Girl.

Thousands Of People Who Say They "love" Animals Sit Down Once Or Twice A Day To Enjoy The Flesh Of Creatures Who Have Been Utterly Deprived Of Everything That Could Make Their Lives Worth Living And Who Endured The Awful Suffering And The Terror Of The Abattoirs...

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.

When I Began In 1960, Individuality Wasn't An Accepted Thing To Look For; It Was About Species-specific Behaviour. But Animal Behaviour Is Not Hard Science. There's Room For Intuition.

The Cheapest And Most Efficient Way Of Slowing Down Global Warming Is To Protect And Restore The Forests, Particularly The Tropical Forests

The Least I Can Do Is Speak Out For The Hundreds Of Chimpanzees Who, Right Now, Sit Hunched, Miserable And Without Hope, Staring Out With Dead Eyes From Their Metal Prisons. They Cannot Speak For Themselves.

I Think Anything Is Better Than War. The Extent To Which One Can Negotiate With Fanatics, I Have No Idea. I Don't Know.

Cultural Speciation Had Been Crippling To Human Moral And Spiritual Growth. It Had Hindered Freedom Of Thought, Limited Our Thinking, Imprisoned Us In The Cultures Into Which We Had Been Born. . . . These Cultural Mind Prisons. . . . Cultural Speciation Was Clearly A Barrier To World Peace. So Long As We Continued To Attach More Importance To Our Own Narrow Group Membership Than To The ‘global Village’ We Would Propagate Prejudice And Ignorance.

Every Individual Matters. Every Individual Has A Role To Play. Every Individual Makes A Difference.

We Have To Create More And More Vegetarians, And Help People To Understand That It Is Not Only The Suffering Of The Animals (which Is What Made Me Vegetarian) But Also The Incredible Harm To The Environment, The Tremendous Amount Of Greenhouse Gas Created By The Whole Vast Machinery Of Intensive Animal Farming.

Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Orangutan Shave Been Living For Hundreds Of Thousands Of Years In Their Forest,living Fantastic Lives, Never Overpopulating, Never Destroying The Forest. I Would Say That They Have Been In A Way More Successful Than Us As Far As Being In Harmony With The Environment.

People Say, "oh, We Ought To Fight For Animal Rights." We Fought For Human Rights, But Even If Humans Have Rights, They Can Still Be Horribly Abused And Are Every Day. You Don't Have To Go To Some Far Off Land, Far Away Place; We Have A Lot Of Child Abuse In Our Own Society.

It Is These Undeniable Qualities Of Human Love And Compassion And Self-sacrifice That Give Me Hope For The Future. We Are, Indeed, Often Cruel And Evil. Nobody Can Deny This. We Gang Up On Each One Another, We Torture Each Other, With Words As Well As Deeds, We Fight, We Kill. But We Are Also Capable Of The Most Noble, Generous, And Heroic Behavior.

The Chimpanzees Taught Me A Lot About Nonverbal Communication. The Big Difference Between Them And Us Is That They Don't Have Spoken Language. Everything Else Is Almost The Same: Kissing, Embracing, Swaggering, Shaking The Fist.

If You Really Want Something, And Really Work Hard, And Take Advantage Of Opportunities, And Never Give Up, You Will Find A Way.. Follow Your Dreams.

People Don't Believe That Their Actions Really And Truly Are Going To Make A Difference. But Kids Get It. They Know. And They Get All Excited About The Difference They're Making.

Terrorism Is Usually Fueled By Poverty, And The Fanatical Faith Of The Terrorists Who Truly Believe That The More People They Kill Who Do Not Subscribe To Their Faith, The Greater Their Reward In Heaven.

We Have So Far To Go To Realize Our Human Potential For Compassion, Altruism, And Love.

I Became Intensely Aware Of The Being-ness Of Trees. The Feel Of Rough Sun-warmed Bark Of An Ancient Forest Giant, Or The Cool, Smooth Skin Of A Young And Eager Sapling, Gave Me A Strange, Intuitive Sense Of The Sap As It Was Sucked Up By Unseen Roots And Drawn Up To The Very Tips Of The Branches, High Overhead.

We Are Beginning To Learn That Each Animal Has A Life And A Place And A Role In This World. If We Place Compassion And Care In The Middle Of All Our Dealings With The Animal World And Honor And Respect Their Lives, Our Attitudes Will Change.

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.

Just Think Of The Trust That Often Exists In Soldiers. Within Their Own Unit, You Could Say They Have To Trust Each Other. A Spirit Of Camaraderie Builds Up And, In The End, They Will Risk Their Lives For Each Other. They May Even Go So Far As To Dehumanise The Other, Enemy Group - A Mechanism You Can Also Observe In Chimps.

Change Happens By Listening And Then Starting A Dialogue With The People Who Are Doing Something You Don't Believe Is Right.

Cumulatively Small Decisions, Choices, Actions, Make A Very Big Difference.

Whales, Like Elephants, Are So Social And Intelligent. This Hurts Me To Think Of Them Being Transported, Put In Noisy Airplanes, And Brought To A Horrible Concrete Pen When They're Supposed To Be Out In The Sea.

It Was Because The Chimps Are So Eye-catching, So Like Us And Teach Us So Much That My Work Was Recognised Worldwide.

Most Africans Don't Get To See These Wild Animals At All. Once They See And Learn About Them, They Are Much More Likely To Become Involved In Protecting The Environment.

I Think We're Still In A Muddle With Our Language, Because Once You Get Words And A Spoken Language It Gets Harder To Communicate.

I Cannot Remember A Time When I Did Not Want To Go To Africa To Study Animals.

A Book Came Out Recently Written By Scientists And Environmentalists That Made Me So Angry. It Said The Only Thing We Have To Worry About Is Big Industry. Each Individual Who Tries To Make His Or Her Own Environment Better Is Useless. I Find This Criminal, Because Then You Have A Billion People All Saying, It Doesn't Matter What I Do Because I'm Just One Person. But If You Turn That Around And A Billion People Say, What I Do Does Make A Difference, Then It Will Make A Difference.

You Cannot Share Your Life With A Dog, As I Had Done In Bournemouth, Or A Cat, And Not Know Perfectly Well That Animals Have Personalities And Minds And Feelings.

To Me, Cruelty Is The Worst Of Human Sins. Once We Accept That A Living Creature Has Feelings And Suffers Pain, Then By Knowingly And Deliberately Inflicting Suffering On That Creature, We Are Guilty, Whether It Be Human Or Animal.

I Learnt From Flo How To Be Mother. Flo Was Patient, Tolerant. She Was Supportive. She Was Always There. She Was Playful. She Enjoyed Having Her Babies, As Good Mothers Do.

Every Individual Can Make A Difference ... If We Continue To Leave Decision Making To The So-called Decision Makers, Things Will Never Change.

I've Always Felt You Don't Have To Be Completely Detached, Emotionally Uninvolved To Make Precise Observations. There's Nothing Wrong With Feeling Great Empathy For Your Subjects.

I Sometimes Wonder How Some People Can Live With Themselves In Some Of The Big Companies Today. So Many Far-reaching Decisions Are Based On How They Will Affect The Next Shareholders' Meeting.

Maternal Behavior Helps When You Have To Be Patient With Nonverbal Creatures.

We're The Ones Who Can Make A Difference. If We Lead Lives Where We Consciously Leave The Lightest Possible Ecological Footprints, If We Buy The Things That Are Ethical For Us To Buy And Don't Buy The Things That Are Not, We Can Change The World Overnight.

Making A Difference

Some Humans Are Mathematicians-others Aren't.

Even In Chimps There Is True Altruistic Behaviour; Behaviour That Doesn't Fit Into The Sociobiological Model That Says You Either Help A Close Relative And Thereby Your Own Genes, Or You Help Somebody Else Now In Return For Their Help In The Future. When A Very High-ranking Male Chimpanzee Rescues A Little Orphan, Saving His Life, That Kind Of Explanation Doesn't Work.

Animals Were My Passion From Even Before I Could Speak Apparently. When I Was About 10, 11 I Fell In Love With Tarzan.

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.

I Am Obstinate And I Will Not Give In.

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