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there have been too many events in my life, and in the lives of my friends, which have defied any kind of scientific explanation. Science does not have appropriate tools for the dissection of the spirit.

Jane Goodall

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Jane Goodall
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: April 3
Anthropologist
Environmentalist
Ethologist
Primatologist
University Teacher
Writer
Hampstead Village
Dame Jane Morris Goodall
Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall
Dame Jane Goodall
Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall
Kind
Tools
Life
Events
Friends
Defied
Lives
Dissection
Science
Explanation
Spirit
Appropriate
Doe
Scientific
Many
Spirituality

More quotes by Jane Goodall

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It made me feel particularly sickened to know that this kind of callous attitude toward animals is repeated again and again in laboratories around this country.
Jane Goodall
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Cumulatively small decisions, choices, actions, make a very big difference.
Jane Goodall
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We seem to have lost the wisdom of the indigenous people, which dictated that in any major decision, the first consideration was 'How will this decision we're making today affect our people in the future? These days, decisions are made based on the bottom line.
Jane Goodall
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It's the bond between mother and child, which is really for us and for chimps and other primates, the root of all the expressions of social behavior.
Jane Goodall
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I think the most important thing to do is to be willing to listen, willing to care, and willing to admit mistakes and change your ways for the better!
Jane Goodall
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Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, we will help. Only if we help, we shall be saved.
Jane Goodall
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Language allows us to talk about the past and plan the future. We can teach children about things that are not present. And above all, we can bring people with different backgrounds and different knowledge together to discuss our problems. This actually gives me hope. I still think we are smart enough to not destroy planet Earth, our only home.
Jane Goodall
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If plants could be credited with reasoning powers, we would marvel at the imaginative ways they bribe or ensnare other creatures to carry out their wishes.
Jane Goodall
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And I thought how sad it was that, for all our sophisticated intellect, for all our noble aspirations, our aggressive behavior was not just similar in many ways to that of the chimpanzees - it was even worse. Worse because human beings have the potential to rise above their baser instincts, whereas chimpanzees probably do not.
Jane Goodall
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I think the most important thing is to keep active, and to hope that your mind stays active.
Jane Goodall
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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
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But does that mean that war and violence are inevitable? I would argue not because we have also evolved this amazingly sophisticated intellect, and we are capable of controlling our innate behavior a lot of the time.
Jane Goodall
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We're the ones who can make a difference. If we lead lives where we consciously leave the lightest possible ecological footprints, if we buy the things that are ethical for us to buy and don't buy the things that are not, we can change the world overnight.
Jane Goodall
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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
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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
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However much you know giraffes, to see one in the wild for the first time feels prehistoric.
Jane Goodall
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We have to create more and more vegetarians, and help people to understand that it is not only the suffering of the animals (which is what made me vegetarian) but also the incredible harm to the environment, the tremendous amount of greenhouse gas created by the whole vast machinery of intensive animal farming.
Jane Goodall
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Even chimps understand the concept - if a troop of chimps enters a fruit tree, they will only pick the fruits that are ripe and leave the others growing. That is sustainability.
Jane Goodall
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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
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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