“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.”

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.

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.

We have the choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place.

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.

As thy days, so shall thy strength be.

How can you stop yourself from yelling and shouting and accusing everyone of cruelty? The easy answer is that the aggressive approach simply doesn’t work.

I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Women and elephants never forget.

I don’t run with wolves, the wolves run with me.

When a man appreciates only eating and sleeping, what excellence has he over the reptiles?

God sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal, and awakens in man.

Use a sweet tongue, courtesy, and gentleness, and thou mayest manage to guide an elephant by a hair.

That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.

Man is, beyond dispute, the most excellent of created beings, and the vilest animal is a dog; but the sages agree that a grateful dog is better than an ungrateful man.