Famous Vegetarians

Jane Goodall

Especially now when views are becoming more polarized, we must work to understand each other across political, religious and national boundaries.

Jane Goodall, DBE (born 1934-04-03) is an English UN Messenger of Peace, primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist. She is best-known for her study of chimpanzee social and family life in Gombe Stream National Park for 45 years, and for founding the Jane Goodall Institute.

Contents 1 Sourced 1.1 Reason for Hope: a Spiritual Journey (2000) 1.2 "Then & Now: Jane Goodall", CNN (June 19, 2005) 2 Attributed 3 External links

Sourced

• Just remember--if you are really and truly determined to work with animals, somehow, either now or later, you will find a way to do it. But you have to want it desperately, work hard, take advantage of an opportunity--and never give up.
  • My Life with the Chimpanzees (1996), p. 113.

• In what terms should we think of these beings, nonhuman yet possessing so very many human-like characteristics? How should we treat them? Surely we should treat them with the same consideration and kindness as we show to other humans; and as we recognize human rights, so too should we recognize the rights of the great apes? Yes.
  • "Chimpanzees - Bridging the Gap", in Paola Cavalieri, Peter Singer, The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity (1996), p. 14.

• Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall they be saved.
  • Reported in Patti Denys, Mary Holmes, Animal Magnetism: At Home With Celebrities & Their Animal Companions (1998), p. 106.

• Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.
  • With Love (1999).

• The least I can do is speak out for the hundreds of chimpanzees who, right now, sit hunched, miserable and without hope, staring out with dead eyes from their metal prisons. They cannot speak for themselves.
  • Reported in Janelle Rohr, Animal rights: opposing viewpoints (1989), p. 100; Jane Goodall and Jennifer Lindsey, Jane Goodall: 40 Years at Gombe (1999), p. 6. Occasionally misreported in truncated form, as "The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves", in, e.g., quote honored on EarthE eco money.

• 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.
  • Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe (2000), p. 215.

• The more we learn of the true nature of non-human animals, especially those with complex brains and corresponding complex social behavior, the more ethical concerns are raised regarding their use in the service of man -- whether this be in entertainment, as "pets," for food, in research laboratories, or any of the other uses to which we subject them.
  • Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe (2000), p. 245.

• The greatest danger to our future is apathy.
  • "The Power of One", Time Magazine (August 26, 2002).

• Lasting change is a series of compromises. And compromise is all right, as long your values don't change.
  • Subject: Jane Goodall, primatologist and conservationist, interviewed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002).

• We can't leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world's people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.
  • Subject: Jane Goodall, primatologist and conservationist, interviewed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002).

• Thousands of people who say they "love" animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering and the terror of the abattoirs— and the journey to get there— before finally leaving their miserable world, only too often after a painful death.
  • The Ten Trusts (2003), p. xv.

• I wanted to talk to the animals like Dr. Dolittle.
  • Reported in Brad Dunn, "Change of Scenery", When They Were 22: 100 Famous People at the Turning Point in Their Lives (2006), p. 51.

• Today it is generally accepted that although the earliest humans probably ate some meat, it was unlikely to have played a major role in their diet. Plants would have been a much more important source of food.
  • Harvest for Hope (2006).

• The long hours spent with them in the forest have enriched my life beyond measure. What I have learned from them has shaped my understanding of human behavior, of our place in nature.
  • Referring to the chimpanzees, reported in Connie Jankowski, Jane Goodall: Primatologist and Animal Activist (2009), p. 13.

• Especially now when views are becoming more polarized, we must work to understand each other across political, religious and national boundaries.
  • Reported in Elizabeth LeReverend, "The Irrepressible Dr. Jane Goodall", Verge Magazine (2010).

• Researchers find it very necessary to keep blinkers on. They don't want to admit that the animals they are working with have feelings. They don't want to admit that they might have minds and personalities because that would make it quite difficult for them to do what they do; so we find that within the lab communities there is a very strong resistance among the researchers to admitting that animals have minds, personalities and feelings.
  • "An Interview with Jane Goodall", In Defense of Animals (date unknown).

Reason for Hope: a Spiritual Journey (2000)

Reason for Hope: a Spiritual Journey (2000), with Phillip Berman.

• I do not want to discuss evolution in such depth, however, only touch on it from my own perspective: from the moment when I stood on the Serengeti plains holding the fossilized bones of ancient creatures in my hands to the moment when, staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee, I saw a thinking, reasoning personality looking back. You may not believe in evolution, and that is all right. How we humans came to be the way we are is far less important than how we should act now to get out of the mess we have made for ourselves.
  • P. xx.

• How would I have turned out, I sometimes wonder, had I grown up in a house that stifled enterprise by imposing harsh and senseless discipline? Or in an atmosphere of overindulgence, in a household where there were no rules, no boundaries drawn? My mother certainly understood the importance of discipline, but she always explained why some things were not allowed. Above all, she tried to be fair and to be consistent.
  • P. iv.

• Is it not possible that the chimpanzees are responding to some feeling like awe? A feeling generated by the mystery of water; water that seems alive, always rushing past yet never going, always the same yet ever different. Was it perhaps similar feelings of awe that gave rise to the first animistic religions, the worship of the elements and the mysteries of nature over which there was no control? Only when our prehistoric ancestors developed language would it have been possible to discuss such internal feelings and create a shared religion.
  • P. 189.

• Anyone who tries to improve the lives of animals invariably comes in for criticism from those who believe such efforts are misplaced in a world of suffering humanity.
  • P. 217.

"Then & Now: Jane Goodall", CNN (June 19, 2005)

Quotes reported in a CNN interview, "Then & Now: Jane Goodall", CNN (June 19, 2005).

• My mission is to create a world where we can live in harmony with nature. And can I do that alone? No. So there is a whole army of youth that can do it. So I suppose my mission is to reach as many of those young people as I can through my own efforts.

• As I traveled, talking about these issues, I met so many young people who had lost hope. Some were depressed; some were apathetic; some were angry and violent. And when I talked to them, they all more or less felt this way because we had compromised their future and the world of tomorrow was not going to sustain their great-grandchildren.

• You can imagine my dismay when I got to Cambridge and found that I had done everything wrong. I shouldn't have named the chimps; I should have given them numbers. I couldn't talk about their personalities, their minds or their feelings because that was unique to us.

• So this is my effort to bring back the hope that we must have if we are to change direction. . . . I think to be fully human, we need to have meaning in our lives, and that's what I am trying to help these young people to find.

Attributed

• Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right.
  • Reported in Yolanda Brooks, Do Animals Have Rights? (2008), p. 23.

• The most important thing is to actually think about what you do. To become aware and actually think about the effect of what you do on the environment and on society. That's key, and that underlies everything else.
  • Reported in Cathryn Berger Kaye, M.A., Philippe Cousteau, Going Blue: A Teen Guide to Saving Our Oceans, Lakes, Rivers, & Wetlands (2010), p. 14.