Primates Quotes - Page 3

• Civilisation is only a pretense. In crisis we have become mere apes again, forgetting the rational biped of our pretensions and instead becoming the hairy primate at the mouth of the cave, screeching at the enemy wishing it would go away, fingering the heavy stone we will use the moment it comes close enough

  Orson Scott Card

  Enemy, Going Away, Wish

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• Why is it that it's okay to call a white person "mate" yet it's not okay to call a black guy "primate"?

  Frankie Boyle

  Funny, Humor, White

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• We belong to that order of mammals, the primates, distinguished by its propensity for repeated single litters, intense parental care, long life-spans, late sexual maturity, and a complex and extensive social existence... Our protracted biological and psychological helplessness, which extends well into the third year of life, intensifies the bond between infant and parents, making possible a sense of generational continuity. In contrast to other primates these bonds are not obliterated after sexual maturity.

  Louise J. Kaplan

  Maturity, Order, Years

  Louise J. Kaplan (1995). “Adolescence: The Farewell to Childhood”, Touchstone Books

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• Actually, the highest form of human organization is not realized in the democratic individual. It is realized in a dimension none of us have ever penetrated, which is the mind of the species, which is actually the hand at the tiller of history. . . . It is an organized entelechy of some sort, and human history is its signature on the primates.

  Terence McKenna

  Hands, Organization, Mind

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• PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Gentleman, Church, Palaces

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.171, 谷月社

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• Most of our social nature is like that of other primates - we're mostly out for ourselves.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Social

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• But let us not forget that human love and compassion are equally deeply rooted in our primate heritage, and in this sphere too our sensibilities are of a higher order of magnitude than those of chimpanzees.

  Jane Goodall

  Compassion, Order, Heritage

  Jane Goodall (2010). “Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe”, p.245, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• We are part of nature, a product of a long evolutionary journey. To some degree, we carry the ancient oceans in our blood. … Our brains and nervous systems did not suddenly spring into existence without long antecedents in natural history. That which we most prize as integral to our humanity - our extraordinary capacity to think on complex conceptual levels - can be traced back to the nerve network of primitive invertebrates, the ganglia of a mollusk, the spinal cord of a fish, the brain of an amphibian, and the cerebral cortex of a primate.

  Murray Bookchin

  Spring, Ocean, Journey

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• Women are extraordinary in lacking the estrus, or period of heat. The females of most other primate species become sexually active, to the point of aggression, only at the time of ovulation. Why has sexual responsiveness become nearly continuous? Unusually frequent sexual activity between males and females served as the principle device for cementing the pair bond.

  E. O. Wilson

  Pairs, Principles, Males

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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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• Civilization is the mastery of violence, the triumph, constantly challenged, over the aggressive nature of the primate. For primates we have been and primates we shall remain, however often we learn to find joy in a camellia on moss. This is the very purpose of education.

  Muriel Barbery

  Civilization, Joy, Triumph

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, books.google.ru. September 2, 2013.

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• Remember always that we are pattern-seeking primates who are especially adept at finding patterns with emotional meaning.

  Michael Shermer

  Emotional, Religion, Atheism

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• You know, there are just some things you never expect to face even on this job. A flying primate that shoots fire out its nose is one of them.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Jobs, Fire, Flying

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2013). “The Dark-Hunters”, p.1157, Macmillan

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• You display inordinate pride for someone who has completed a task which could have been performed by a lesser primate in a shorter time.

  Eoin Colfer

  Pride, Tasks, Display

  Eoin Colfer (2009). “And Another Thing...”, Hyperion

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• I’ve never met anyone who had a monkey for a friend before. (Maggie) I don’t know. I think those two guys you were with would qualify as primates, but then, that’s an insult to the primate and I don’t want Marvin to get pissed at me. He has higher sensibilities, you know? (Wren)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Thinking, Two, Guy

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• Unlike the primate hand, the elephant's grasping organ is also its nose. Elephants use their trunks not only to reach food but also to sniff and touch it. With their unparalleled sense of smell, the animals know exactly what they are going for. Vision is secondary.

  Frans de Waal

  Animal, Hands, Elephants

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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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• The primate laugh is given in playful contexts, and as such has a strong similarity to the human laugh.

  Frans de Waal

  Strong, Laughing, Given

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• The belief that the animals exist because God created them - and that he created them so we can better meet our needs - is contrary to our scientific understanding of evolution and, of course, to the fossil record, which shows the existence of non-human primates and other animals millions of years before there were any human beings at all.

  Peter Singer

  Animal, Years, Understanding

  "Religion's regressive hold on animal rights issues" by Peter Singer, www.theguardian.com. June 08, 2010.

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• We're living in primate heaven. We're warm, dry, we're not hungry, we don't have fleas and ticks and infections. So why are we so miserable?

  Steven Pinker

  Heaven, Fleas, Dry

  "Steven Pinker: the mind reader". www.theguardian.com. November 5, 1999.

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• Primate and elephant and even pig societies show considerable evidence of care for others, parent-child bonding, solidarity in the face of danger, and so on.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Children, Pigs, Elephants

  "Is Christianity Good for the World?". Book by Christopher Hitchens, ‎Douglas Wilson, 2009.

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• There's actually a lot of evidence in primates and other animals that they return favors.

  Frans de Waal

  Inspirational, Motivational, Animal

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• Primate books are good for us. They remind us that we're primates, too. And the embarrassing primate books are best. Macachiavellian Intelligence is an excellently embarrassing primate book, and just the thing to make us blush and shuffle our feet.

  Michael Bywater

  Book, Feet, Embarrassing

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• We remain of the view that in many areas of research we are still reliant on primates to achieve our goals for improving human health

  Colin Blakemore

  Animal, Views, Goal

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• When we are bad, we are worse than any primate that I know. And when we are good, we are actually better and more altruistic than any primate that I know.

  Frans de Waal

  Knows

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