Self Quotes by Frans de Waal

Dogmatists have one advantage: they are poor listeners.

— Frans de Waal

If both parties have a stake in the other, the chances of them killing each other are going to be reduced.

— Frans de Waal

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…

— Frans de Waal

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…

— Frans de Waal

Science is not inherently good.

— Frans de Waal

The possibility that empathy resides in parts of the brain so ancient that we share them with rats should give pause to anyone comparing…

— Frans de Waal

“on August 16, 1996, when an eight-year-old female gorilla named Binti Jua helped a three-year-old boy who had fallen eighteen feet into the primate…

— Frans de Waal

We start out postulating sharp boundaries, such as between humans and apes, or between apes and monkeys, but are in fact dealing with sand…

— Frans de Waal

Perhaps it's just me, but I am wary of any persons whose belief system is the only thing standing between them and repulsive behavior.

— Frans de Waal

Personally, I think it is possible to build a society that is moral on a nonreligious basis, but the jury is still out on…

— Frans de Waal

“humans are a strange lot. We have the power to analyze and explore the world around us, yet panic as soon as the evidence…

— Frans de Waal

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

— Frans de Waal

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

— Frans de Waal

“In a world divided by chimpophiles and bonobophiles, we all had a good laugh when Stephen peeled his banana. (62)”

— Frans de Waal

In Africa, we have the bush meat trade, which means that, on a very large scale, animals are being killed in the forests and…

— Frans de Waal