Jane Goodall — "I believe in a spiritual power, but I don't necessarily identify with any partic…"
I believe in a spiritual power, but I don't necessarily identify with any particular religion.
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More from Jane Goodall
"I believe that every living creature has a soul, and that we should treat them with respect."
"We have so much to learn from the animals, if we would only listen."
"My early mentors were animals. They taught me patience, observation, and how to listen."
"Every single one of us can make a difference, and we should never forget that."
"I can't imagine living without hope. It's what keeps me going."
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
The speaker holds a personal belief in something greater than the material world — a spiritual force or presence — without subscribing to the creeds, rituals, or institutions of organized religion. It separates faith from dogma: acknowledging transcendence and meaning while refusing to be confined by any single tradition's rules or labels. In modern terms, this is the 'spiritual but not religious' stance — open, individual, and unbounded by doctrine.
Relevance to Jane Goodall
Goodall spent decades living inside Gombe's forests, witnessing chimpanzees mourn, bond, and display what she described as near-human emotions. That intimacy with wild nature gave her a deep spiritual reverence for living things. Raised Anglican, she has described a transcendent moment under the Gombe forest canopy as a turning point — a felt sense of connection to something vast and unnameable that no single religious framework could fully contain.
The era
Goodall came of age during mid-20th century secularization, when Western religious attendance began its long decline and the 'spiritual but not religious' demographic grew steadily. Meanwhile, evolutionary biology and ethology — her own field — were in constant cultural friction with religious institutions over human uniqueness and animal consciousness. Her statement navigates that tension: honoring the spiritual impulse while remaining free of doctrines that often conflicted with scientific evidence about humanity's place in the animal world.
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