Jane Goodall famous quotes

Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.
-- Jane Goodall

#Educational #Differences #Play

I never wanted to give up. I thought I might have to. Especially at the beginning when chimpanzees had never seen a white person before.They gave one look at me and ran away! They were scared, but eventually I got their trust.
-- Jane Goodall

#Giving Up #White #Looks

The greatest danger to our future is apathy.
-- Jane Goodall

#Inspirational #Peace #Grace

Every stage of my life set the scene for the next, and at each point all I had to do was say "yes" and not think too much about the consequences.
-- Jane Goodall

#Thinking #Too Much #Next

Empathy is really important.. Only when our clever brain and our human heart work together in harmony can we achieve our full potential.
-- Jane Goodall

#Clever #Heart #Empathy

I think we must cling to the hope that we can see in the great heroism, the bravery of the firemen and policemen, and the outpouring of caring and concern that has come pouring in from around the world.
-- Jane Goodall

#Caring #Thinking #Bravery

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

#Life #Differences #Making A Difference

Terrorism is usually fueled by poverty, and the fanatical faith of the terrorists who truly believe that the more people they kill who do not subscribe to their faith, the greater their reward in heaven.
-- Jane Goodall

#Believe #People #Heaven

My mission is to create a world where we can live in harmony with nature.
-- Jane Goodall

#World #Harmony #Missions

I think anything is better than war. The extent to which one can negotiate with fanatics, I have no idea. I don't know.
-- Jane Goodall

#War #Thinking #Ideas

It's been proven by quite a few studies that plants are good for our psychological development. If you green an area, the rate of crime goes down. Torture victims begin to recover when they spend time outside in a garden with flowers. So we need them, in some deep psychological sense, which I don't suppose anybody really understands yet.
-- Jane Goodall

#Flower #Garden #Needs

Every single day, we could be in a motorcar accident, so, we have to carry on with our lives, and not imagine terror around every corner.
-- Jane Goodall

#Imagine #Car Accident #Terror

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.
-- Jane Goodall

#Spiritual #Believe #Ideas

We are unique. Chimpanzees are unique. Dogs are unique. But we humans are just not as different as we used to think.
-- Jane Goodall

#Dog #Unique #Thinking

I'm always pushing for human responsibility. Given that chimpanzees and many other animals are sentient and sapient, then we should treat them with respect.
-- Jane Goodall

#Responsibility #Animal #Pushing

Mainly because as women's education increases all around the planet, we find that family size tends to drop.
-- Jane Goodall

#Size #Increase #Planets

The most important thing is to actually think about what you do. To become aware and actually think about the effect of what you do on the environment and on society. That's key, and that underlies everything else.
-- Jane Goodall

#Thinking #Keys #Important

You're thinking about putting scientists into small cages and doing research on them. I wish it could happen sometimes.
-- Jane Goodall

#Thinking #Wish #Research

Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans have been living for hundreds of thousands of years in their forest, living fantastic lives, never overpopulating, never destroying the forest. I would say that they have been in a way more successful than us as far as being in harmony with the environment.
-- Jane Goodall

#Successful #Years #Way

To me, trees are living beings and they have their own sort of personalities.
-- Jane Goodall

#Personality #Tree

Farm animals feel pleasure and sadness, excitement and resentment, depression, fear, and pain. They are far more aware and intelligent than we ever imagined...they are individuals in their own right.
-- Jane Goodall

#Pain #Sadness #Animal

I believe that accurate knowledge is very, very important, but find that out in free time. Don't let it take over every hour of the day. Perhaps most important, talk about it.
-- Jane Goodall

#Believe #Important #Hours

every individual can make a difference ... if we continue to leave decision making to the so-called decision makers, things will never change.
-- Jane Goodall

#Responsibility #Differences #Decision

If you look through all the different cultures. Right from the earliest, earliest days with the animistic religions, we have sought to have some kind of explanation for our life, for our being, that is outside of our humanity.
-- Jane Goodall

#Humanity #Different #Culture

It's easy to become hopeless. So people must have hope: the human brain, the resilience of nature, the energy of young people and the sort of inspiration that you see from so many hundreds of people who tackle tasks that are impossible and never give up and succeed.
-- Jane Goodall

#Giving Up #Inspiration #People

Someday we shall look back on this dark era of agriculture and shake our heads. How could we have ever believed that it was a good idea to grow our food with poisons?
-- Jane Goodall

#Dark #Ideas #Agriculture

If we allow the destruction of the environment, we can see the terrorists have utterly won, and are destroying the future of our children and grandchildren. We must not let that happen.
-- Jane Goodall

#Children #Environment #Destruction

Especially now when views are becoming more polarized, we must work to understand each other across political, religious and national boundaries.
-- Jane Goodall

#Religious #Views #Political

Cumulatively small decisions, choices, actions, make a very big difference.
-- Jane Goodall

#Differences #Choices #Decision

From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That's what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.
-- Jane Goodall

#Spiritual #Strong #Believe

People don't believe that their actions really and truly are going to make a difference. But kids get it. They know. And they get all excited about the difference they're making.
-- Jane Goodall

#Believe #Kids #Differences

Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, we will help. Only if we help, we shall be saved.
-- Jane Goodall

#Relationship #Nature #Animal

I don't think anybody has the right to a huge family. There's already more people on the planet than our natural resources can even support, and if everybody were to have a high standard of living, we need three or four or five new planets to provide the resources. And this cannot be, so something has to change.
-- Jane Goodall

#Thinking #People #Support

The more we learn of the true nature of non-human animals, especially those with complex brains and corresponding complex social behavior, the more ethical concerns are raised regarding their use in the service of man—whether this be in entertainment, as 'pets,' for food, in research laboratories, or any of the other uses to which we subject them.
-- Jane Goodall

#Animal #Men #Pet

I get upset when so many people say there are all sorts of problems in Africa and India where they have these big families. They don't realize that 10 children in rural Tanzania will use less natural resources in a year than one middle class American child. People don't think like that.
-- Jane Goodall

#Children #Thinking #Years

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.
-- Jane Goodall

#Responsibility #Play #Differences

Terrorism is fueled by hate. The tragedy is that there are countless young children who are being taught to hate. Terrorism is usually fueled also by poverty.
-- Jane Goodall

#Children #Hate #Tragedy

Anyone who tries to improve the lives of animals invariably comes in for criticism from those who believe such efforts are misplaced in a world of suffering humanity.
-- Jane Goodall

#Believe #Animal #Effort

If we could just stop building up armies and things like that, we would have all the money we need for wildlife and poverty.
-- Jane Goodall

#Army #Needs #Poverty

My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn't have any money, because Africa was the 'dark continent', and because I was a girl.
-- Jane Goodall

#Girl #Mother #Dream

My hope for the future is that we learn wisdom again.
-- Jane Goodall

#Hope For The Future

Having respect for animals makes us better humans..
-- Jane Goodall

#Animal #Humans

I believe that the tragedy [like terror attack] that's caused so much grief and suffering to so many thousands and thousands of people has also served as a call to action, because many people now are re-examining their own value systems, and the churches, temples, mosques and cathedrals are packed to overflowing for the first time in years.
-- Jane Goodall

#Grief #Believe #Years

We have the choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place--or not to bother
-- Jane Goodall

#Inspiring #Choices #Use

I wouldn't even like to begin to define God - I have absolutely no idea. But what I feel, and what touches me, is a great spiritual power, which I don't even want to name. If I had to, I would say God, because I don't know any other.
-- Jane Goodall

#Spiritual #Names #Ideas

One cannot watch chimpanzee infants for long without realizing that they have the same emotional need for affection and reassurance as human children.
-- Jane Goodall

#Children #Emotional #Long

We started off with physical evolution and got our form. Then we somehow developed language, which meant cultural evolution could race so we could change our behavior really quickly instead of over hundreds and hundreds of years. And then comes moral evolution, which means we're not frightfully far along with people. And maybe we end up with a spiritual evolution, which is this connectedness with the rest of the life forms on the planet.
-- Jane Goodall

#Spiritual #Mean #Race

Certainly, if you look at human behavior around the world, you have to admit that we can be very aggressive.
-- Jane Goodall

#Looks #World #Behavior

We could change the world tomorrow if all the millions of people around the world acted the way they believe.
-- Jane Goodall

#Believe #People #World

The voice of the natural world would be, 'could you please give us space and leave us alone to get along with our own lives and our own ways, because we actually know much better how to do it than when you start interfering''
-- Jane Goodall

#Zoos #Voice #Space

I had a wonderful teacher about animal behavior - my dog Rusty. He taught me that animals have personalities, minds, and feelings.
-- Jane Goodall

#Dog #Teacher #Animal

When I look back over my life it's almost as if there was a plan laid out for me - from the little girl who was so passionate about animals who longed to go to Africa and whose family couldn't afford to put her through college. Everyone laughed at my dreams. I was supposed to be a secretary in Bournemouth.
-- Jane Goodall

#Girl #Dream #College

What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language.
-- Jane Goodall

#Thinking #Language #Sophisticated

As human beings, we can encompass a vague feeling of what the universe is, and all in this funny little brain here - so there has to be something more than just brain, it has to be something to do with spirit as well.
-- Jane Goodall

#Feelings #Brain #Littles

You may not believe in evolution, and that is all right. How we humans came to be the way we are is far less important than how we should act now to get out of the mess we have made for ourselves.
-- Jane Goodall

#Believe #Important #Way

If we kill off the wild, then we are killing a part of our souls.
-- Jane Goodall

#Soul #Killing #Conservation

Here we are, the most clever species ever to have lived. So how is it we can destroy the only planet we have?
-- Jane Goodall

#Clever #Stewardship #Planets

There are an awful lot of scientists today who believe that before very long we shall have unraveled all the secrets of the universe. There will be no puzzles anymore. To me, it'd be really, really tragic because I think one of the most exciting things is this feeling of mystery, feeling of awe, the feeling of looking at a little live thing and being amazed by it and how it has emerged through these hundreds of years of evolution and there it is and it is perfect and why.
-- Jane Goodall

#Nature #Believe #Thinking

Let us develop respect for all living things. Let us try to replace violence and intolerance with understanding and compassion. And love.
-- Jane Goodall

#Respect #Compassion #Understanding

To me, cruelty is the worst of human sins. Once we accept that a living creature has feelings and suffers pain, then by knowingly and deliberately inflicting suffering on that creature, we are guilty, whether it be human or animal.
-- Jane Goodall

#Pain #Animal #Feelings

The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.
-- Jane Goodall

#Speak

If only we can overcome cruelty, to human and animal, with love and compassion we shall stand at the threshold of a new era in human moral and spiritual evolution - and realize, at last, our most unique quality: humanity.
-- Jane Goodall

#God #Spiritual #Unique

I have found that to love and be loved is the most empowering and exhilarating of all human emotions.
-- Jane Goodall

#Love #Empowering #Emotion

Chimpanzees, more than any other living creature, have helped us to understand that there is no sharp line between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. It's a very blurry line, and it's getting more blurry all the time.
-- Jane Goodall

#Motivation #Inspiration #Animal

Here we are, arguably the most intelligent being that's ever walked planet Earth, with this extraordinary brain ... and yet we're destroying the only home we have.
-- Jane Goodall

#Motivation #Inspiration #Home

Above all we must realize that each of us makes a difference with our life. Each of us impacts the world around us every single day. We have a choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place - or not to bother
-- Jane Goodall

#Impact #Differences #Choices

There would be very little point in my exhausting myself and other conservationists themselves in trying to protect animals and habitats if we weren't at the same time raising young people to be better stewards.
-- Jane Goodall

#Animal #People #Earth Day

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

#Children #Fun #Parenting

A sense of calm came over me. More and more often I found myself thinking, "This is where I belong. This is what I came into this world to do.
-- Jane Goodall

#Thinking #World #Calm

It would be absolutely useless for any of us to work to save wildlife without working to educate the next generation of conservationists.
-- Jane Goodall

#Wildlife #Would Be #Generations

We have so far to go to realize our human potential for compassion, altruism, and love.
-- Jane Goodall

#Compassion #And Love #Realizing

Farm animals are far more aware and intelligent than we ever imagined and, despite having been bred as domestic slaves, they are individual beings in their own right. As such, they deserve our respect. And our help. Who will plead for them if we are silent? Thousands of people who say they ‘love’ animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been treated so with little respect and kindness just to make more meat.
-- Jane Goodall

#Kindness #Intelligent #Animal

My mother always taught us that if people don't agree with you, the important thing is to listen to them. But if you've listened to them carefully and you still think that you're right, then you must have the courage of your convictions.
-- Jane Goodall

#Mother #Thinking #People

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

#Change #Leadership #Believe

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 terror of the abattoirs.
-- Jane Goodall

#Inspiring #Animal #People

Louis [Leakey] was anxious to initiate a scientific study of these chimpanzees. It would be difficult, he emphasized, for nothing was known; there were no guidelines for such a field study; and the habitat was remote and rugged. Dangerous wild animals would be living there, and chimpanzees themselves were considered at least four times stronger than humans. I remember wondering what kind of scientist he would find for such a herculean task.
-- Jane Goodall

#Science #Animal #Stronger

I am living in the Africa I have always longed for, always felt stirring in my blood.
-- Jane Goodall

#Blood