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

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.

It was a reward far beyond my greatest hopes.

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.

Any little thing that brings us back into communion with the natural world and the spiritual power that permeates all life will help us to move a little further along the path of human moral and spiritual evolution.

Nature can win if we give her a chance.

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.