Frans de Waal Quotes

Science is not inherently good.

In Africa, we have the bush meat trade, which means that, on a very large scale, animals are being killed in the forests and sold in the cities as a luxury food.

Contrary to general belief, humans imitate apes more than the reverse. The sight of monkeys or apes induces an irresistible urge in people to jump up and down, exaggeratedly scratch themselves and holler in a way that must make the primates wonder how this otherwise so intelligent species has come to depend on such inferior means of communication.

Dogmatists have one advantage: they are poor listeners.

Armies are a purely human invention. Most soldiers who go to war nowadays don’t even do it because they’re inherently aggressive.

Exclusive homosexuality is not very common in nature.

We are by far the most contradictory of all primates. An animal with this much internal conflict has never lived on this earth.

As far as the environment is concerned, I am becoming pessimistic because I do not see anybody stepping up and taking the long view approach. It seems like we’re stuck in a tragedy of the commons where everyone is trying to contribute as little as possible to get out of this situation.

We would much rather blame nature for what we don’t like in ourselves than credit it for what we do like.

To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us.

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!

People want to work with somebody who feels shame, who worries about the perceptions of others. Dishonesty is something we don’t like in others.