Apes Quotes

“Never call anyone a baboon unless you are sure of your facts.”
― Will Cuppy

“We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realize that we are apes.”
― Richard Dawkins, A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love

“Hair on a man's chest is thought to denote strength. The gorilla is the most powerful of bipeds and has hair on every place on his body except for his chest.”
― Anton LaVey

“But once an original book has been written-and no more than one or two appear in a century-men of letters imitate it, in other words, they copy it so that hundreds of thousands of books are published on exactly the same theme, with slightly different titles and modified phraseology. This should be able to be achieved by apes, who are essentially imitators, provided, of course, that they are able to make use of language.”
― Pierre Boulle, Planet of the 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.”
― Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

“Television's perfect. You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back and drain your mind of all thought. And there you are watching the bubbles in the primeval ooze. You don't have to concentrate. You don't have to react. You don't have to remember. You don't miss your brain because you don't need it. Your heart and liver and lungs continue to function normally. Apart from that, all is peace and quiet. You are in the man's nirvana. And if some poor nasty minded person comes along and says you look like a fly on a can of garbage, pay him no mind. He probably hasn't got the price of a television set.”
― Raymond Chandler

“He did not know that the Old One was his father, for such a relationship was utterly beyond his understanding, but as he looked at the emaciated body he felt a dim disquiet that was the ancestor of sadness.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“It wouldn't happen... There hasn't been one publication by a monkey”
― Karl Pilkington, The Ricky Gervais Show - First, Second and Third Seasons

“My family tree spreads wide as well. I am a great ape, and you are a great ape, and so are chimpanzees and orangutans and bonobos, all of us distant and distrustful cousins.

I know this is troubling.

I too find it hard to believe there is a connection across time and space, linking me to a race of ill-mannered clowns.

Chimps. There's no excuse for them.”
― Katherine Applegate, The One and Only Ivan

“Everything is improved by the judicious application of primates.”
― Chris Roberson

“The shrieks were coming from two quite naked girls, who were pursued by a pair of apes snapping at their bottoms. [...] So he now raises his double-barrelled Spanish rifle, fires and kills both apes. 'God be praised, my dear Calambo! I have delivered these two poor creatures from grave peril; if it was a sin to kill an Inquisitor and a Jesuit, I have made ample amends by saving the lives of two girls [...]'
He was about to continue, but words failed him when he saw the two girls throw their arms lovingly around the two apes and collapse in tears over their corpses, filling the air with the most pitiful lamentations. 'I was not expecting quite so much tenderness of heart,' he said at last to Cacambo, who replied: 'You've excelled yourself this time, Master; you have just despatched the two lovers of these young ladies.' '-Their lovers! Is it possible? You're making fun of me, Cacambo; how could anyone believe in such a thing?' - 'My dear Master,' retorted Cacambo, 'you are always astounished by everything; why do you find it so strange that in some countries it is apes who enjoy the favours of young ladies? After all, they are one-quarter human, just as I am one-quarter Spanish.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“A century ago, people laughed at the notion that we were descended from monkeys. Today, the individuals most offended by that claim are the monkeys.”
― Jacob M. Appel, Scouting for the Reaper

“Hominids are all the Neanderthals, australopithecines, Homo
habili, Homo erecti, etc., the upright-walking apes of which we are
the only surviving species.”
― Joe Quirk, It's Not You, It's Biology.: The Science of Love, Sex, and Relationships

“The way most people use and are used by their minds gives substance to the belief that we are barely evolved apes.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“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)”
― Andrew Westoll

“No existing form of anthropoid ape is even remotely related to the stock which has given rise to man.”
― Henry Fairfield Osborn

“P33- the son of an english lord and an english lady nursed at the breast of kala, the great ape.”
― Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes

“I love chimpanzees. I love their stubbornness and their strength. I love the way they dig their fingers into life and never let it get the better of them. I love the tenderness beneath their wild tempers. I love them because they refuse to apologize for who they are.”
― Vanessa Woods, Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo

“I've decided language isn't as advanced as we think it is. We're still apes trying to express our thoughts with grunts while most of what we want to communicate stays locked in our brain”
― Glendy Vanderah, Where the Forest Meets the Stars

“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.”
― Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are

“Primates arouse a certain nervousness because they show us ourselves in a brutally honest light, reminding us,.....that we are mere 'naked apes.”
― Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are

“It is not important at all that we were all once an ape! The important thing is that how very much we evolved and how far we got away from the apes!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Apes or human – we all made the same mistake, tempted by shifting leaves or the smell of sex, by music or a ripe banana.”
― Kathryn Davis, Duplex

“Humans are narcissists and we like a cryptid that resembles us. Sea monsters, globsters, out-of-place animals, the potentially not-extinct, and mythic beasts do not hold a candle to an ape-man.”
― Thomm Quackenbush, Holidays with Bigfoot

“Interestingly, bonobo percussionists prefer a tempo of 280 beats per minute, the syllabic rate at which most humans speak.”
― Dr Susan Block

“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.”
― Jean Baudrillard

“It is the apes who control the mind of man.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“My research into how sleeping in moonlight affects humans came out of my awareness that apes sleep in moonlight.”
― Steven Magee

“The human smile derives from the nervous grin found in other primates. We employ it when there is a potential for conflict, something we are always worried about even under the friendliest circumstances. We bring flowers or a bottle of wine when we are invading other people’s home territory, and we greet each other by waving an open hand, a gesture thought to originate from showing that we carry no weapons. But the smile remains our main tool to improve the mood. Copying another’s smile makes everyone happier, or as Louis Armstrong sang: “When you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you.”
― Frans de Waal, Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves

“Reprimanded children sometimes can’t stop smiling, which risks being mistaken for disrespect. All they’re doing, though, is nervously signaling nonhostility. This is why women smile more than men, and why men who smile are often in need of friendly relations. One study explicitly looked at this underdog quality of the smile in pictures taken right before matches in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The photographs show both fighters defiantly staring at each other. Analysis of a large number of pictures revealed that the fighter with the more intense smile was the one who’d end up losing the fight later that day. The investigators concluded that smiling indicates a lack of physical dominance, and that the fighter who smiles the most is the one most in
need of appeasement.”
― Frans de Waal, Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves