Robert Ardrey > Quotes

“But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.”
― Robert Ardrey, African Genesis: A Personal Investigation Into the Animal Origins and nature of Man

“A human being is a problem in search of a solution.”
― Robert Ardrey, Thunder Rock

“We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments?”
― Robert Ardrey, African Genesis: A Personal Investigation Into the Animal Origins and nature of Man

“The dog barking at you from behind his master's fence acts for a motive indistinguishable from that of his master when the fence was built.”
― Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry Into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations

“There is nothing so moving - not even acts of love or hate - as the discovery that one is not alone.”
― Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry Into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations

“Man is neither unique nor central nor necessarily here to stay. But he is a product of circumstances special to the point of disbelief. And if man in his current predicament seeks a fair mystique to see him through, then I can only suggest that he consider his genes. For they are marked. They are graven by luck beyond explanation. They are stamped by forces that we shall never know. But even so, in the hieroglyph of the human emergence certain symbols must stand for all to read: Change is the elixir of the human circumstance, and acceptance of challenge the way of our kind. We are bad-weather animals, disaster’s fairest children. For the soundest of evolutionary reasons man appears at his best when times are worst.”
― Robert Ardrey, African Genesis: A Personal Investigation Into the Animal Origins and nature of Man

“I have lived my life in the shelter of too many northern alliances. I have made alliance with the gentle cow, the health department, the local policeman. In the shelter of such alliances I have got out of bed in the morning with moderate assurance that I shall still be alive at bedtime. But south of the moon my allies vanish, and I have an emptiness in my stomach. I fear the cobras in the garden. I lack a treaty with the lioness. I dread the crocodiles of Lake Victoria, the tsetse fly in the Tanganyika bush, the little airplane with the funny engine, and the mosquito in the soft evening air. But most of all, I am afraid of the African street.”
― Robert Ardrey

“Man beset by anarchy, banditry, chaos and extinction must at last resort turn to that chamber of horrors, human enlightenment. For he has nowhere else to turn.”
― Robert Ardrey, African Genesis: A Personal Investigation Into the Animal Origins and nature of Man

“The hunter died when he achieved supremacy. Perhaps the death of the hunter will be the long monument to interglacial man. We denied a future to our sucessor beings.”
― Robert Ardrey, The Hunting Hypothesis: A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man

“There is a virtue, I must presume, in shamelessness, since by placing on parade the things one does not know, one discovers that no one else knows either.”
― Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry Into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations

“Why is man man? As long as we have had minds to think with, stars to ponder upon, dreams to disturb us, curiosity to inspire us, hours free for meditation, words to place our thoughts in order, the question like a restless ghost has prowled the cellars of our consciousness.”
― Robert Ardrey, The Hunting Hypothesis: A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man

“Classic is our daring, classic our cowardice. Classic is our cruelty, classic our charity.”
― Robert Ardrey, The Hunting Hypothesis: A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man

“Art is an adventure. When it ceases to be an adventure, it ceases to be art. Not all of us pursue the inaccessible landscapes of the twelve-tone scale, just as not all of us strive for inaccessible mountain-tops, or glory in storms at sea. But the human incidence is there. Could it be that these two impractical pursuits — of beauty and of adventure’s embrace — are simply two differing profiles of the same uniquely human reality?”
― Robert Ardrey

“What we call patriotism, in other words, is a calculable force which, released by a predictable situation, will animate man in a manner no different from other territorial species.”
― Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry Into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations

“STREETER: Let’s just not argue. You can call me stupid, all right. I can call you a coward, all right. It’s just I believe one thing, you believe something else. I think the world’s got an outside chance, you believe it hasn’t. That’s all.”
― Robert Ardrey, Thunder Rock

“Learning, like oxygen, is something imbibed from the atmosphere about one.”
― Robert Ardrey, The Social Contract: A Personal Inquiry into the Evolutionary Sources of Order and Disorder

“journey he headed directly to it, leaving his tunnel behind him and stopping only when the thinnest film of bark separated the tunnel from the outdoors. Then the larva backs up. Having moved an appropriate distance from the exit, he proceeds to hollow out a chamber not his size but large enough to accommodate the beetle who does not yet exist. The larva’s brush with destiny, however, is not yet done. He seals the chamber at either end with a natural cement produced in his stomach. Now, with doors neatly closed, he rasps down the walls of his sealed chamber to cover the floor with a soft down. Using the same wood-wool, he completes the decor by felting all walls a millimeter thick. Now at last his preparations for the accouchement are finished and he lies down and sheds his skin, becoming a pupa which in turn will become a beetle. But the wonders of instinct have not yet been finally recorded. He lies down always with his head toward the exit. Were he to lie down the wrong way,”
― Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations