Jane Goodall

We have so far to go to realize our human potential for compassion, altruism, and love.

I wanted to talk to the animals like Dr. Dolittle.

Chimpanzees have given me so much. The long hours spent with them in the forest have enriched my life beyond measure. What I have learned from them has shaped my understanding of human behavior, of our place in nature.

Someday we shall look back on this dark era of agriculture and shake our heads. How could we have ever believed that it was a good idea to grow our food with poisons?

We are, indeed, often more clever than wise.

The hardest part of returning to a truly healthy environment may be changing the current totally unsustainable heavy-meat-eating culture of increasing numbers of people around the world. But we must try. We must make a start, one by one.

There is a powerful force unleashed when young people resolve to make a change.

I became totally absorbed into this forest existence. It was an unparalleled period when aloneness was a way of life; a perfect opportunity, it might seem, for meditating on the meaning of existence and my role in it all.

We find animals doing things that we, in our arrogance, used to think was 'just human'.

If we kill off the wild, then we are killing a part of our souls.

It is these undeniable qualities of human love and compassion and self-sacrifice that give me hope for the future.

One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.

We can't leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world's people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.

I don't think that faith, whatever you're being faithful about, really can be scientifically explained. And I don't want to explain this whole life through logic. I mean, there's so much mystery. There's so much awe.

The forest taught me that everything is connected, every species has a role to play.

To achieve global peace, we must not only stop fighting each other, but also stop destroying the natural world.

I think the best evenings are when we have messages, stories, that make us laugh, and stories that make us cry, and stories that give us hope.

We have the power to create a new story, one where we live in harmony with the natural world.

Let us develop respect for all living things. Let us try to replace violence and intolerance with understanding and compassion. And love.

Young people, when informed and empowered, when they realize that what they do truly makes a difference, can indeed change the world.