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

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.

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.

Orcas are my spirit animal. That’s my favorite mammal.

You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town.

I write many essays on whales. I love whales, especially orcas. And dolphins.

They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.

Kinky sex involves the use of duck feathers. Perverted sex involves the whole duck.

I think that what one can see from a Darwinian account is how the addition of culture in our species turns us into a very special sort of animal, an animal that can be a moral agent in a way that no other animal can be.

I turned down Prince William’s invitation for me to sing at his birthday bash because he was spearing animals in Africa and bringing publicity to it, and I thought that was pretty disgusting!

Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.