Bonobos Quotes

• I sometimes try to imagine what would have happened if we’d known the bonobo first and the chimpanzee only later—or not at all. The discussion about human evolution might not revolve as much around violence, warfare and male dominance, but rather around sexuality, empathy, caring and cooperation. What a different intellectual landscape we would occupy!

  Frans de Waal

  Caring, Empathy, Intellectual

  Frans de Waal (2006). “Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are”, p.41, Penguin

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• Female bonobos form a strong sisterhood. They rule through female solidarity.

  Frans de Waal

  Strong, Sisterhood, Female

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• Bonobos are unique among great apes because they are not dominated by males.

  Claudine Andre

  Unique, Males, Apes

  "Bonobos: What we can learn from our primate cousin". "60 Minutes" with Anderson Cooper, www.cbsnews.com. December 6, 2015.

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• Bonobos really violate a rule of nature where usually if you're bigger, you're going to be dominant. But here, females are actually smaller. But they're still not dominated by males because they work together.

  Claudine Andre

  Working Together, Males, Female

  "Bonobos". "60 Minutes" with Anderson Cooper, www.cbsnews.com. August 7, 2016.

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• Bonobos don't really have that darker side. So that's where they could really help us is how could it be that a species that has a brain a third of the size of ours can do something that with all our technological prowess we can't accomplish? Which is to not kill each other.

  Claudine Andre

  Brain, Sides, Size

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

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• ...chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are thinking, self-aware beings, capable of planning ahead, who form lasting social bonds with others and have a rich social and emotional life. The great apes are therefore an ideal case for showing the arbitrariness of the species boundary. If we think that all human beings, irrespective of age or mental capacity, have some basic rights, how can we deny that the great apes, who surpass some humans in their capacities, also have these rights?

  Peter Singer

  Emotional, Thinking, Animal

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• Being both more systematically brutal than chimps and more empathetic than
  bonobos, we are by far the most bipolar ape. Our societies are never completely peaceful, never completely competitive, never ruled by sheer selfishness, and never perfectly moral.

  Frans de Waal

  Peaceful, Bipolar, Selfishness

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• Male bonobos really don't fit the human male ideal.

  Frans de Waal

  Males, Fit, Humans

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• We have a lot to learn from [bonobos], because they're a very egalitarian society and they're a very empathetic society. Sexual behavior is not confined to one aspect of their life that they set aside. It permeates their entire life.

  Sue Savage-Rumbaugh

  Motivation, Inspiration, Behavior

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• Bonobos may have a brain that's a third the size of ours, but they're remarkably intelligent.

  Claudine Andre

  Intelligent, Brain, May

  "Bonobos: What we can learn from our primate cousin". "60 Minutes" with Anderson Cooper, www.cbsnews.com. December 6, 2015.

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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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• Don't fall in love with a bonobo, because it's gonna die.

  Anderson Cooper

  Falling In Love, Don't Fall In Love, Dies

  "Bonobos". www.cbsnews.com. August 7, 2016.

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• Its important to remember that we evolved. Now, I know thats a dirty word for some people, but we evolved from common ancestors with the gorillas, the chimpanzee and also the bonobos. We have a common past, and we have a common future.

  Louise Leakey

  Dirty, Past, People

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• Bonobo studies started in the '70s and came to fruition in the '80s. Then in the '90s, all of a sudden, boom, they ended because of the warfare in the Congo. It was really bad for the bonobo and ironic that people with their warfare were preventing us from studying the hippies of the primate world.

  Frans de Waal

  Hippie, People, Ironic

  "The Bonobo in All of Us". Interview with Sue Western, www.pbs.org. September 29, 2005.

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• Most men probably wouldn't want to live the lives of bonobos. They're constantly clinging to their mothers' apron strings. They lack the ability to make decisions about their own fates, something that we and male chimpanzees practically consider our birthright.

  Frans de Waal

  Mother, Fate, Men

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