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The fact that the apes exist and that we can study them is extremely important and makes us reflect on ourselves and our human nature. In that sense alone, you need to protect the apes.
Frans de Waal
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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
Needs
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Apes
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Reflect
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Human
Protect
Humans
Study
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Important
Fact
More quotes by Frans de Waal
We, who think like animals living in small groups, must structure a global world. We believe in universal human rights and believe racism and war are wrong. On the other hand, it is our nature to be cooperative and loving almost exclusively with the members of the group to which we feel we belong.
Frans de Waal
Darwin wasn't just provocative in saying that we descend from the apes - he didn't go far enough. We are apes in every way, from our long arms and tailless bodies to our habits and temperament.
Frans de Waal
Humans have a lot of pro-social tendencies.
Frans de Waal
The chimpanzees could tear me apart in no time. They're many times stronger than we are.
Frans de Waal
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
We are territorial, power-hungry and even more brutal than chimpanzees.
Frans de Waal
The more self-aware an animal is, the more empathetic it tends to be.
Frans de Waal
Being both more systematically brutal than chimps and more empathetic than bonobos, we are by far the most bipolar ape. Our societies are never completely peaceful, never completely competitive, never ruled by sheer selfishness, and never perfectly moral.
Frans de Waal
I think we need to start thinking about grounding our moral systems in our biology.
Frans de Waal
There is little evidence that other animals judge the appropriateness of actions that do not directly affect themselves.
Frans de Waal
In Africa, we have the bush meat trade, which means that, on a very large scale, animals are being killed in the forests and sold in the cities as a luxury food.
Frans de Waal
There's actually a lot of evidence in primates and other animals that they return favors.
Frans de Waal
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
Religion may have become a codification of morality, and it may fortify it, but it's not the origin of it.
Frans de Waal
The role of inequity in society is grossly underestimated. Inequity is not good for your health, basically.
Frans de Waal
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
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
When we are bad, we are worse than any primate that I know. And when we are good, we are actually better and more altruistic than any primate that I know.
Frans de Waal
The primate laugh is given in playful contexts, and as such has a strong similarity to the human laugh.
Frans de Waal
To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us.
Frans de Waal
