Jane Goodall — "What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference y…"
What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
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More from Jane Goodall
"My early mentors were animals. They taught me patience, observation, and how to listen."
"Every day is a new opportunity to make a positive impact on the world."
"It is our responsibility to protect the planet and all the species that live on it."
"The future of the planet depends on us, and we need to take that responsibility seriously."
"I'm not a saint. I'm just a woman who cares deeply about the natural world."
About Jane Goodall (born 1934)
British primatologist who in 1960 began the longest-running wild primate study at Gombe Stream, transforming our understanding of chimpanzees. Closely associated with Dian Fossey (mountain-gorilla researcher) and Birutė Galdikas (orangutan researcher; together with Goodall and Fossey one of Louis Leakey's 'Trimates'). For an intellectual contrast, see Walter Palmer, American dentist who killed Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe in 2015 — Palmer represents the trophy-hunting tradition Goodall's life's work has been organized against — the colonial-era hunter-naturalist worldview that treated primates and big game as specimens or trophies, which Goodall's Roots & Shoots and Jane Goodall Institute exist specifically to displace.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Every action—or inaction—shapes the world around you. No one is neutral: your choices carry weight whether you acknowledge it or not. Rather than defaulting to passivity, it challenges you to be deliberate about your impact. The responsibility isn't merely to act, but to think critically about the direction of that action and consciously align it with your values and intentions.
Relevance to Jane Goodall
Goodall spent decades at Gombe Stream, Tanzania, redefining humanity's understanding of chimpanzees and animal cognition. But witnessing accelerating habitat destruction firsthand, she pivoted from observer to global advocate, founding the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots & Shoots youth program. This quote distills her personal arc: a scientist who chose intervention over detachment, and spent the rest of her life insisting others make that same conscious choice.
The era
Goodall's career spans one of the most consequential environmental eras in history. She began fieldwork in 1960 as industrialization and deforestation accelerated globally. By the 1980s and 1990s, biodiversity loss, tropical deforestation, and climate change had become undeniable crises. Environmental activism surged—Earth Day, the Kyoto Protocol, NGO proliferation. Her message resonated because millions faced a stark choice: engage with an increasingly visible ecological emergency or look away.
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