“Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other.”

Lasting change is a series of compromises. And compromise is all right, as long your values don’t change.

Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help, shall all be saved.

And so began one of the most exciting periods of my life, the time of discovery.

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.

Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.

That is our hope. Because if we all start listening and helping, then surely, together, we can make the world a better place for all living things. Can’t we?

The greatest danger to our future is apathy.

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.

Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, we will help. Only if we help, we shall be saved.

I never wanted to be a scientist per se. I wanted to be a naturalist.

We have so far to go to realize our human potential for compassion, altruism, and love.

We have the choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place–or not to bother

So, let us move forward with faith in ourselves, in our intelligence, in our indomitable spirit. Let us develop respect for all living things. Let us try to replace violence and intolerance with understanding and compassion and love.

Sometimes I [longed to be a chimp] I just wanted to know. what it felt like in the evening to be making a nest and what it felt like to be a female when a big male comes thundering in.

It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.

People said, Jane, forget about this nonsense with Africa. Dream about things you can achieve.

Perfect behaviour is born of complete indifference.

My justification is that most people my age spend a lot of time thinking about what they’re going to do for the next five or ten years. The time they spend thinking about their life, I just spend drinking.

Indifference was our greatest enemy.

There’s no doubt we were unworthy, but we were never worthless. Big difference.

Truth cannot be sacrificed at the altar of pretended tolerance. Real tolerance is deference to all ideas, not indifference to the truth.

There’s a monumental difference in believing in God and believing God.

There is less difference than many suppose between the ideal Socialist system, in which the big businesses are run by the State, and the present Capitalist system, in which the State is run by the big businesses.

How can I explain the difference to me between America and Russia? the America I’ve known is a place where men on horseback escort union marchers, the Russia I’ve known is a place where men on horseback slaughter young Socialists and Jews.