Apes Quotes - Page 7

• I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs
  By the known rules of ancient liberty,
  When straight a barbarous noise environs me
  Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs.

  John Milton

  Dog, Owl, Age

  'Sonnet' 12 'I did but prompt the age' (1673)

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• Although elephants are far more distantly related to us than the great apes, they seem to have evolved similar social and cognitive capacities.

  Frans de Waal

  Elephants, Social, Capacity

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• Darwin wasn't just provocative in saying that we descend from the apes - he didn't go far enough. We are apes in every way, from our long arms and tailless bodies to our habits and temperament.

  Frans de Waal

  Long, Body, Arms

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• It is well known that apes in the wild offer spontaneous assistance to each other, defending against leopards, say, or consoling distressed companions with tender embraces.

  Frans de Waal

  Leopards, Spontaneous, Well Known

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• You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never Rises from the soul, and sways The heart of every single hearer, With deepest power, in simple ways. You’ll sit forever, gluing things together, Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps, Blowing on a miserable fire, Made from your heap of dying ash. Let apes and children praise your art, If their admiration’s to your taste, But you’ll never speak from heart to heart, Unless it rises up from your heart’s space.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Children, Simple

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• I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes, will endure --will endure longer than his home planet, will spread out to the other planets, to the stars, and beyond, carrying with him his honesty, his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage --and his noble essential decency. This I believe with all my heart.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Stars, Honesty, Believe

  "This I Believe", 1952.

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• "I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much... because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting" ... "But that's not all people laugh at." "Isn't it? Perhaps I don't grok all its fullness yet. But find me something that really makes you laugh sweetheart... a joke, or anything else- but something that gave you a a real belly laugh, not a smile. Then we'll see if there isn't a wrongness wasn't there." He thought. "I grok when apes learn to laugh, they'll be people."

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Hurt, Real, People

  "Stranger in a Strange Land". Book by Robert A. Heinlein, 1961.

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• Mr L Prosser was, as they say, only human. In other words he was a carbon-based life form descended from an ape. More specifically he was forty, fat and shabby and worked for the local council. Curiously enough, though he didn't know it, he was also a direct male-line descendant of Genghis Khan, though intervening generations and racial mixing had so juggled his genes that he had no discernible Mongoloid characteristics, and the only vestiges left in Mr L Prosser of his mighty ancestry were a pronounced stoutness about the tum and a predilection for little fur hats.

  Douglas Adams

  Mixing, Males, Generations

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• He helped the Librarian up. There was a red glow in the ape's eyes. It had tried to steal his books. This was probably the best proof any wizard could require that the trolleys were brainless.

  Terry Pratchett

  Book, Eye, Wizards

  Terry Pratchett (2009). “Reaper Man: (Discworld Novel 11)”, p.229, Random House

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• As far as I can recall, the initial shiver of inspiration [for Lolita] was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes, who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Inspiration, Animal, Drawing

  Vladimir Nabokov (2010). “Lolita”, p.311, Vintage

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• He pulled away the glove, and at the first glimpse of her fragile, white hand, all thoughts of negotiation fled. "I don't see how matters could become worse," he muttered. "I am already besotted with a needle-tongued, conceited, provoking ape leader of a lady." Her head jerked up. "Besotted? You're nothing like it. Vengeful is more like it. Spiteful.

  Loretta Chase

  Conceited, Hands, White

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• Driven by a wish to save Tomás from a life of penury and misunderstanding, Fermin had decided that he needed to develop my friend's latent conversational and social skills. Like the good ape he is, man is a social animal, characterized by cronyism, nepotism, corruption, and gossip. That's the intrinsic blueprint for our ethical behavior.

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  Animal, Men, Skills

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2005). “The Shadow of the Wind”, p.96, Penguin

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• We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments?

  Robert Ardrey

  Angel, Killers, Wonder

  ROBERT ARDREY (1961). “AFRICAN GENISIS”

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• We can learn a great deal from whales. It is the same lesson we can learn from our close genetic relatives, the bonobo apes of the Congo. Here mothers have a great deal of authority, there is very little violence (with no signs of sexual violence against females), and their society is held together by sharing and caring rather than by fear and force.

  Riane Eisler

  Mother, Caring, Whales

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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• We are born of risen apes, not fallen angels.

  Robert Ardrey

  Angel, Psychology, Ethics

  Robert Ardrey (1977). “The Hunting Hypothesis: A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man”

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• The devil is God's ape!

  Martin Luther

  God, Devil

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• Football is a game for trained apes. That, in fact, is what most of the players are -- retarded gorillas wearing helmets and uniforms. The only thing more debased is the surrounding mob of drunken monkeys howling the gorillas on.

  Edward Abbey

  Football, Player, Games

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.38, RosettaBooks

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• We're just a conceited, naked ape. But in our minds we're some sort of "divine legend," and we see ourselves as some sort of god. That we can walk around the earth deciding who will live and who will die and what will be destroyed and what will be saved. But the fact is we're just a bunch of primates out of control.

  Paul Watson

  Thinking, Conceited, Mind

  "Sharkwater". Documentary, September 11, 2006.

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• I reject the idea that humans are superior to other life forms. . . Man is just an ape with an overly developed sense of superiority.

  Paul Watson

  Men, Ideas, Form

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• The great thing about this jungle of ours is that anyone of you could grow up to be Lord of the apes.

  Gary Larson

  Growing Up, Stupidity, Lord

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• English Law: where there are two alternatives: one intelligent, one stupid; one attractive, one vulgar; one noble, one ape-like; one serious and sincere, one undignified and false; one far-sighted, one short; EVERYBODY will INVARIABLY choose the latter.

  Cyril Connolly

  Stupid, Intelligent, Law

  David Pryce-Jones, Cyril Connolly (1983). “Cyril Connolly: Journal and Memoir”, HarperCollins

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• It was their individuality combined with the shyness of their behavior that remained the most captivating impression of this first encounter with the greatest of the great apes.

  Dian Fossey

  Individuality, Encounters, Firsts

  Dian Fossey (2000). “Gorillas in the Mist”, p.4, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I am not an ape, I am a man. The world has been created by God. Man has been created by God. It is not possible for man to understand God - God understands God. Man is God and therefore understands God. I am God. I am a man. I am good and not a beast. I am an animal with reason. I have flesh, I *am* flesh, I am not descended from flesh. Flesh is created by God. I am God. I am God. I am God.

  Vaslav Nijinsky

  Animal, Men, World

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• One ape's hallucination is another ape's religious experience - it just depends on which one’s god module is overactive at the time.

  Charles Stross

  Religious, Hallucinations, Depends

  Charles Stross (2005). “Accelerando”, p.440, Penguin

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• In the year 2007, seals, otters, lions, turtles, frogs, apes, snakes, butterflies, polar bears, cheetahs, whales are disappearing along with their variously furnished homes: cloud forests, rain forests, ice pack, boreal forests, coral reefs, forests of deciduous trees, conifer and palm.

  Eban Goodstein

  Rain, Home, Butterfly

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