Lawrence Anthony > Quotes

“The only good cage is an empty cage.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer

“But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those that we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer

“Our inability to think beyond our own species, or to be able to co-habit with other life forms in what is patently a massive collaborative quest for survival, is surely a malady that pervades the human soul.”
― Lawrence Anthony

“They taught me that all life forms are important to each other in our common quest for happiness and survival. That there is more to life than just yourself, your own family, or your own kind.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer: Learning about Life, Loyalty and Freedom from a Remarkable Herd of Elephants

“In our noisy cities we tend to forget the things our ancestors knew on a gut level: that the wilderness is alive, that its whispers are there for all to hear - and to respond to.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer

“I have never understood the saying 'To think outside the box.' Why would anyone sit inside of a box and then think outside of it. Rather just get out of the box.”
― Lawrence Anthony

“Ensuring that our home planet is healthy and life sustaining is an overwhelming priority that undercuts all other human activities. The ship must first float.
Our failure to grasp these fundamental tenants of existence will be our undoing. And one thing is for certain. No calvary is going to come charging to our rescue. We are going to have to rescue ourselves or die trying.
Workable solutions are urgently needed. Saving seals and tigers or fighting yet another oil pipeline through a wilderness area, while laudable, is merely shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. The real issue is our elementary accord with Earth and the plant and animal kingdoms has to be revitalized and re-understood.
The burning question is, How?”
― Lawrence Anthony, Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo

“There is nothing more energizing than inhaling the tang of wilderness, loamy after rain, pungent with the richness of earth shuddering with life, or taking in the brisk dry cleanness of winter.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer: Learning about Life, Loyalty and Freedom from a Remarkable Herd of Elephants

“Every wild thing is in tune with its surroundings, awake to its fate and in absolute harmony with the planet. Their attention is focused totally outwards. Humans, on the other hand, tend to focus introspectively on their own lives too often, brooding and magnifying problems that the animal kingdom would not waste a millisecond of energy upon. To most people, the magnificent order of the natural world where life and death actually mean something has become unrecognizable.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer

“It is also vital that our relationship with nature and the environment be included in our education systems. This is not longer something cute or nice to do; it is now a singular imperative.”
― Lawrence Anthony, Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo

“Workable solutions for Earth are urgently needed. Saving seals and tigers, or fighting yet another oil pipeline through a wilderness area, while laudable, is merely shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.”
― Lawrence Anthony

“People will say we're being a little bit anthropomorphic?' I remembered Brendan's use of the word - 'human-like'.

'Anyone who doesn't believe that animals are aware that they have family and friends, and care about them, must also be a paid-up member of the Flat Earth Society, or still think the sun revolves around the earth,' replied Dylan disdainfully. 'I mean, how switched off can you be? How can anyone still believe animals don't have emotions? They're alive and emotions are a response to life. I've seen warthogs that are more intelligent and more responsible than some people I know. Not to say better parents.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Last Rhinos: My Battle to Save One of the World's Greatest Creatures

“The wrong way to go about this is to say: Well, researchers have ‘proved’ that animals only understand fifty words or something similarly absurd. Or that communication with other species is an illusion. Communication is not the preserve of humans; it is the one thing that is truly universal.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild

“Why do we so mindlessly abuse our planet, our only home? The answer to that lies in each of us. Therefore, we will strive to bring about understanding that we are--each one of us--responsible for more than just ourselves, our family, our football team, our country, or our own kind; that there is more to life than just these things. That each one of us must also bring the natural world back into its proper place in our lives, and realize that doing so is not some lofty ideal but a vital part of our personal survival.”
― Lawrence Anthony, Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo

“This is not just primitive rural superstition; [juju] is practiced by all kinds of people, from illiterate herd boys to multi-dregreed university professors. If you don't understand the power of this belief, you will never truly grasp the rich albeit often incomprehensible spirituality of Africa.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer

“But sometimes you have to go for it in life. If you just sit around thinking, then nothing ever happens. And with that I was seized by a moment of clarity.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Last Rhinos: My Battle to Save One of the World's Greatest Creatures

“The children danced on. They were alive; that is all that mattered. They lived for the moment. They danced when they could, and died when they would.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Last Rhinos: My Battle to Save One of the World's Greatest Creatures

“Wild. If there is one thing I disapprove of it’s the unnatural capture and taming of wild animals, whether an elephant or a bird. To me, the only good cage is an empty cage.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild

“Communication is not the preserve of humans; it is the one thing that is truly universal.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild

“Somehow I had become aware that elephants project their presence into an area around them, and that they have control over this, because when they didn’t want to be found I could be almost on top of them and pick up nothing at all. A little more experimentation and research and it became clear what was happening.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer: Learning about Life, Loyalty and Freedom from a Remarkable Herd of Elephants

“How such incredibly powerful creatures could be so vulnerable was a crime against the universe. The tragic futility of it all was what really got me. The rhino’s brilliant million-year evolutionary effort to build up three tons of muscle, bone and horn to defend itself meant nothing in a modern technological world that didn’t care a fig about them. The fact that our grandchildren may never see a rhino in the wild again was a pivotal reason to continue to try and save them.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Last Rhinos: My Battle to Save One of the World's Greatest Creatures

“The basic common denominator of all life is the urge to survive, and the survival of life on Planet Earth is achieved only as a shared initiative with and through all life-forms. Life is a joint effort; no 'man' separate from 'nature.' Homo sapiens as individuals and as species are as much a part of life's overall thrust for survival as any other species. As living organisms, we are part if the greater whole, and as such, we are embodied with exactly the same fundamental purpose: to survive. And to do so--as individuals, families, groups, and as a species--we have to live in dynamic collaboration with the plant and animal kingdoms in a healthy, life-sustaining environment.”
― Lawrence Anthony, Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo

“Years later I was in the Sudan on a conservation project when I heard an incredible story on good authority that sounded similar to my own. During the twenty-year war between northern and southern Sudan elephants were being slaughtered both for ivory and meat and so large numbers migrated to Kenya for safety. Within days of the final ceasefire being signed, the elephants left their adopted residence en masse and trekked the hundreds of miles back home to Sudan. How they knew that their home range was now safe is just another indication of the incredible abilities of these amazing creatures.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer: Learning about Life, Loyalty and Freedom from a Remarkable Herd of Elephants

“So much of our world has been brutally wrested from us; we now have to say enough. No more. Perhaps if enough individuals find out what is actually going on for themselves and start doing something about it, then maybe we can stave off the fast-advancing crisis and create a beautiful. healthy, livable planet where all life flourishes and man is free to rise to greater heights.”
― Lawrence Anthony, Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo

“But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer: Learning about Life, Loyalty and Freedom from a Remarkable Herd of Elephants

“But even if those wavelengths only vibrate for hundreds of square miles, which is now generally accepted in the scientific community, it still means elephants are potentially in contact with each other across the African continent. One herd speaks with a neighbouring herd, which in turn connects with another until you have conduits covering their entire habitat, just as you or I would have a long-distance telephone call.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer: Learning about Life, Loyalty and Freedom from a Remarkable Herd of Elephants

“the biggest damage to the Baghdad Zoo had not been done in battle, fierce as it had been. It was the looters. They had killed or kidnapped anything edible and ransacked everything else. Even the lamp poles had been unbolted, tipped over, and their copper wiring wrenched out like multicolored spaghetti. As we drove past, we could see groups of looters still at it, scavenging like colonies of manic ants.”
― Lawrence Anthony, Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo

“We don't want you here living with us. You are white, and we do not trust you. You must take your family and go."
I could hear the sudden intake of breath. every head in the crowd swiveled, first to the Nkosi, and then to me. I suddenly felt tired. This is what it had all come to;in South Africa, when logic shrivels, the same dreary dinosaurs rear their vicious heads.”
― Lawrence Anthony

“It is about the elephants - it was they who whispered to me and taught me how to listen.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer

“tangled and eternal as Appalachian feuds – are internecine”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer: Learning about Life, Loyalty and Freedom from a Remarkable Herd of Elephants