Jane Goodall Quotes

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.

I went to an empty henhouse [when I was four and a half], hid in the straw at the back, and waited, and the family had no idea where I was... My mother sees this excited little girl rushing toward the house all covered in straw. Instead of getting mad at me, which would've killed the excitement, she saw my shining eyes and sat down to hear this wonderful story of how a hen lays an egg.

When I was young, I knew that, somehow, I would go to Africa and live with animals. And I wanted to write books about them. I don't think I spent too much time wondering exactly how I would do it. I just felt sure that the right opportunity would somehow come. I didn't feel frustrated because I could not go a really long trip while Rusty was still alive. It would have seemed like a betrayal. And while I waited I went on learning.

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.

Hope,” Jane said, “is what enables us to keep going in the face of adversity. It is what we desire to happen, but we must be prepared to work hard to make it so.

don’t really like to go for a walk without a dog.” “Why is that?” “A dog gives a walk a purpose.” “How?” “Well, you are making someone else happy.

Just tell people stories, try and find out who they are, try and find something that links you with them.

...very few Westerners, I thought, could tolerate such a way of life- for it would mean having to forgo the luxuries which we had come to think of as necessities.

Cruelty is a terrible thing. I believe it is the worst human sin.

"I well remember writing to Louis about my first observations, describing how David Graybeard not only used bits of straw to fish for termites but actually stripped leaves from a stem and thus made a tool. And I remember too receiving the now oft-quoted telegram he sent in response to my letter: "Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man, or accept chimpanzees as humans." There"

Peace starts within. (Jane Goodall).

I had never been able to believe that God would give us poor frail humans only one chance at making it — that we would be assigned to some kind of hell because we failed during one experience of mortal life. ... So the concepts of karma and reincarnation made logical sense to me.

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

One of my best days was when I ... offered [chimp David Greybeard] fruit on my outstretched hand, and he turned his head away. I put my hand closer - and he took the fruit, dropped it, and gently squeezed my hand, which is a chimp reassurance gesture ... We communicated perfectly in a language that predates words.

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.