Primate Quotes

“But let us not forget that human love and compassion are equally deeply rooted in our primate heritage, and in this sphere too our sensibilities are of a higher order of magnitude than those of chimpanzees.”
― Jane Goodall

“A century ago, people laughed at the notion that we were descended from monkeys. Today, the individuals most offended by that claim are the monkeys.”
― Jacob M. Appel, Scouting for the Reaper

“The evidence that Homo sapiens have been self-domesticating for three hundred thousand years, and how it happened, suggests that we are a thoroughly unusual primate.”
― Richard W. Wrangham, The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution

“The possibility that empathy is part of our primate heritage ought to makes us happy, but we're not in the habit of embracing our nature. When people commit genocide, we call them "animals". But when they give to the poor, we praise them for being "humane". We like to claim the latter behavior for ourselves.”
― Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are

“But the largest number of primate species--thirty-four--have a promiscuous system in which females routinely associate and copulate with multiple males.”
― Jared Diamond

“Though bonobos tend to be a lot hairier than us—and they don’t build houses or churches or Pentagons like we do—these primates look and act remarkably human. They often even go beyond the merely “human,” and enter the realm of the truly “humane.”
― Susan Block, The Bonobo Way

“Meslek ya da eğilim gereği insan üzerinde çok düşündüğümüz zaman primat maymunlara özlem duyduğumuz olur.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Es cierto que en algunos animales superiores como en primates se ha observado comportamiento deductivo, pero este desarrollo ha sido comparado con el de un niño de dos años, a partir de esta edad, no existe parangón en la naturaleza sobre el desarrollo cognitivo humano.”
― Juan Moises De La Serna, Psicología Animal: Descubre qué papel juega en la vida

“Behavior doesn't fossilize. This is why speculations about human prehistory are often based on what we know about other primates. Their behavior indicates the range of behavior our ancestors may have shown.”
― Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are