Quote

Popular culture bombards us with examples of animals being humanized for all sorts of purposes, ranging from education to entertainment to satire to propaganda. Walt Disney, for example, made us forget that Mickey is a mouse, and Donald a duck. George Orwell laid a cover of human societal ills over a population of livestock.

Frans de Waal

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Frans de Waal
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: October 29
Ethologist
Non-Fiction Writer
Primatologist
Psychologist
University Teacher
Zoologist
Den Bosch
Frans B M de Waal
Frans B. M. de Waal
F. de Waal
Purpose
Entertainment
Mice
Ills
Culture
Donald
Purposes
Walt
Human
Population
Sorts
Mouse
Humanized
Humans
Animals
Laid
Duck
Orwell
Made
Example
Propaganda
Disney
Ranging
Animal
Cover
Ducks
Livestock
Education
George
Satire
Societal
Forget
Popular
Examples
Mickey

More quotes by Frans de Waal

Image
To neglect the common ground with other primates, and to deny the evolutionary roots of human morality, would be like arriving at the top of a tower to declare that the rest of the building is irrelevant, that the precious concept of tower ought to be reserved for the summit.
Frans de Waal
Image
Armies are a purely human invention. Most soldiers who go to war nowadays don't even do it because they're inherently aggressive.
Frans de Waal
Image
I call the notion that we are nothing but killer apes the Beethoven fallacy. Beethoven was disorganized and messy, and yet his music is the epitome of order.
Frans de Waal
Image
Science is not inherently good.
Frans de Waal
Image
We are territorial, power-hungry and even more brutal than chimpanzees.
Frans de Waal
Image
The enemy of science is not religion... . The true enemy is the substitution of thought, reflection, and curiosity with dogma.
Frans de Waal
Image
Religion may have become a codification of morality, and it may fortify it, but it's not the origin of it.
Frans de Waal
Image
Bonobo studies started in the '70s and came to fruition in the '80s. Then in the '90s, all of a sudden, boom, they ended because of the warfare in the Congo. It was really bad for the bonobo and ironic that people with their warfare were preventing us from studying the hippies of the primate world.
Frans de Waal
Image
Exclusive homosexuality is not very common in nature.
Frans de Waal
Image
The role of inequity in society is grossly underestimated. Inequity is not good for your health, basically.
Frans de Waal
Image
Humanity is actually much more cooperative and empathic than [it's] given credit for.
Frans de Waal
Image
It wasn't God who introduced us to morality rather, it was the other way around. God was put into place to help us live the way we felt we ought to.
Frans de Waal
Image
The chimpanzees could tear me apart in no time. They're many times stronger than we are.
Frans de Waal
Image
Studies of reconciliation in primates have demonstrated that if the relationship value increases between two parties they are more willing to make peace.
Frans de Waal
Image
I was raised Catholic. Not just a little bit Catholic, like my wife, Catherine. When she was young, many Catholics in France already barely went to church, except for the big three: baptism, marriage, and funeral. And only the middle one was by choice.
Frans de Waal
Image
Most exotic animals are not particularly interested in people, which makes it hard to provoke them. Human-rearing gets them used to and sometimes imprinted on humans, which makes them potentially dangerous.
Frans de Waal
Image
Male bonobos really don't fit the human male ideal.
Frans de Waal
Image
Most men probably wouldn't want to live the lives of bonobos. They're constantly clinging to their mothers' apron strings. They lack the ability to make decisions about their own fates, something that we and male chimpanzees practically consider our birthright.
Frans de Waal
Image
The intuitive connection children feel with animals can be a tremendous source of joy. The unconditional love received from pets, and the lack of artifice in the relationship, contrast sharply with the much trickier dealings with members of their own species.
Frans de Waal
Image
If we look straight and deep into a chimpanzee's eyes, an intelligent self-assured personality looks back at us. If they are animals, what must we be?
Frans de Waal