Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other.
Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, we will help. Only if we help, we shall be saved.
We have so far to go to realize our human potential for compassion, altruism, and love.
Animals were my passion from even before I could speak apparently. When I was about 10, 11 I fell in love with Tarzan.
Certainly, if you look at human behavior around the world, you have to admit that we can be very aggressive.
Certainly it’s very often true that women tend to be a bit quieter and more prepared to sit there and let the animal tell you things.
Especially now when views are becoming more polarized, we must work to understand each other across political, religious and national boundaries.
One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.
Every single day, we could be in a motorcar accident, so, we have to carry on with our lives, and not imagine terror around every corner.
One cannot watch chimpanzee infants for long without realizing that they have the same emotional need for affection and reassurance as human children.
I had a wonderful teacher about animal behavior – my dog Rusty. He taught me that animals have personalities, minds, and feelings.
I think anything is better than war. The extent to which one can negotiate with fanatics, I have no idea. I don’t know.
There would be very little point in my exhausting myself and other conservationists themselves in trying to protect animals and habitats if we weren’t at the same time raising young people to be better stewards.
I have found that to love and be loved is the most empowering and exhilarating of all human emotions.
The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.
To me, cruelty is the worst of human sins. Once we accept that a living creature has feelings and suffers pain, then by knowingly and deliberately inflicting suffering on that creature, we are guilty, whether it be human or animal.
One individual cannot possible make a difference, alone. It is individual efforts, collectively, that makes a noticeable difference – all the difference in the world!
Terrorism is usually fueled by poverty, and the fanatical faith of the terrorists who truly believe that the more people they kill who do not subscribe to their faith, the greater their reward in heaven.
I think I’d like to be remembered as someone who really helped people to have a little humility and realize that we are part of the animal kingdom not separated from it.
That’s what keeps me going. Everywhere I go there are young people with shining eyes wanting to tell me, “Dr. Jane, we’re going to make the world a better place.”