“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.”

I like to envision the whole world as a jigsaw puzzle. If you look at the whole picture, it is overwhelming and terrifying, but if you work on your little part of the jigsaw and know that people all over the world are working on their little bits, that’s what will give you hope.

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.

Trees are living beings. And they have their own personalities. There are the young, eager saplings, all striving with each other. If you put your cheek against one of those, you almost sense the sap rising and the energy.

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

From the moment when, staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee, I saw a thinking, reasoning personality looking back.

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.

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.

I like some animals more than some people, some people more than some animals.

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 terrors of the abattoirs

He had instigated a detailed study of the limb bones and locomotor patterns of a number of modern antelopes; the functions of varying bone structures of their legs could then be ascertained. Then, from the structure of fossil antelope bones reconstructed their movements.

Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right.

The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves

There is a powerful force unleashed when young people resolve to make a change.

If we do not do something to help these creatures, we make a mockery of the whole concept of justice.

We find animals doing things that we, in our arrogance, used to think was just human .

One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.

Being the rational animal, man must be capable of thinking if he really wants to. Still, it may be that man wants to think, but cannot.

Those who were adept and brave fellows I have made military commanders. Those who were quick and nimble I have made herders of horses. Those who were not adept I have given a small whip and sent to be shepherds.

I could take you for a walk on the beach and I could point out just about any creature and give you their Latin names.

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

I love dogs. I grew up with dogs in my family from the time that I was a little boy; we always had German Shepherds and Labradors. I get on very well with dogs, they trust me.

Struggle is the father of all things. It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle.

Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.