Jane Goodall — "I believe that the human heart, when it is truly open, is capable of great compa…"
I believe that the human heart, when it is truly open, is capable of great compassion.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Jane Goodall
"We need to listen to the voices of the young people. They are the ones who will inherit the Earth."
"We need to teach our children to be good stewards of the Earth, and to protect its resources."
"I think the biggest problem we face is this disconnect between our clever brains and our loving hearts."
"We are at a crossroads, and we have to choose between a path of destruction and a path of hope."
"The future of the planet is in our hands."
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.
Verification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
1 source checked
Understanding this quote
What it means
When we allow ourselves to be genuinely open — emotionally present and not defended — humans naturally gravitate toward empathy and care for others. Compassion is not automatic; it requires setting aside prejudice and indifference. The quote suggests the capacity for deep caring exists within everyone but must be unlocked through deliberate emotional receptivity. It is optimistic: not claiming humans are inherently kind, but that they can be, given the right internal conditions.
Relevance to Jane Goodall
Goodall spent 60-plus years studying chimpanzees at Gombe, Tanzania, famously naming individual animals — David Greybeard, Flo — rather than numbering them, insisting they had personalities and emotional lives. This compassionate regard was professionally controversial but transformed primatology. Her Roots and Shoots program and the Jane Goodall Institute embody the belief that opening human hearts to wildlife and ecosystems drives conservation action far more powerfully than data alone.
The era
Goodall began her Gombe research in 1960, during rapid African decolonization and early environmentalism, when scientific skepticism toward animal emotion was dominant. By the 1980s through 2000s, mass deforestation, extinction crises, and climate change demanded urgent global responses. Her message — that compassion, not just policy, drives protection — resonated during growing ecological despair. Roots and Shoots, launched 1991, mobilized youth precisely when biodiversity loss became a defining civilizational crisis.
AI-generated insights based on extensive research and information for context. Factual errors? Email [email protected].