53 Quotes About Apes

For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs—as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.

Hominids are all the Neanderthals, australopithecines, Homohabili, Homo erecti, etc., the upright-walking apes of which we arethe only surviving species.

it's hard to fool an ape. One reason for that is the absence of distraction by the spoken word. We attach such importance to verbal communication that we lose track of what our bodies say about us.

Interestingly, bonobo percussionists prefer a tempo of 280 beats per minute, the syllabic rate at which most humans speak.

Apes or human – we all made the same mistake, tempted by shifting leaves or the smell of sex, by music or a ripe banana.

No existing form of anthropoid ape is even remotely related to the stock which has given rise to man.

Man has lost the basic skill of the ape, the ability to scratch its back. Which gave it extraordinary independence, and the liberty to associate for reasons other than the need for mutual back-scratching.Trampling down the leaves like snow in the wild light of the dead citadel, whose prince in days gone by rebelled against his king, for which reason the walls were pulled down.

Humans are unique in having the astonishing capacity to extend our sympathies far beyond the here and now. through time and space, to anywhere and anything we choose. It is our culture that decides how large and inclusive our moral circle is, but it is each of us who makes up our culture. (p.250)

We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realize that we are apes.