Desmond Morris Quotes

30 quotes in 611 categories

• Biologically speaking, if something bites you it's more likely to be female.
• The roots of our Soccer Tribe lie deep in our primeval past.
• Artists like cats; soldiers like dogs.
• We are to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of…
• We read off the many signals that our companions' clothes transmit to us in every social encounter. In this way, clothing is as much a…
• Life is like a very short visit to a toy shop between birth and death.
• The idea that it is funny to see wild animals coerced into acting like clumsy humans, or thrilling to see powerful beasts reduced to cringing…
• I think like the species I am studying, whatever it is. If I am watching a lizard, I become the lizard. Gazing ath the water…
• There are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes. One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is…
• No matter how old we become, we can still call them 'Holy Mother' and 'Father' and put a child-like trust in them.
• We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another question. This…
• We may prefer to think of ourselves as fallen angels, but in reality we are rising apes.
• It must be stressed that there is nothing insulting about looking at people as animals. We are animals, after all. Homo sapiens is a species…
• This gives the agents of the gods a powerful area of support. All they need to do is to remind their followers constantly of their…
• The age of a child is inversely correlated with the size of the animals it prefers.
• Sexual behavior in our species goes through three characteristic phases: pair formation, precopulatory activity, and copulation, usually but not always in that order. The pair-formation…
• Under crowded conditions the friendly social interactions between members of a group become reduced, and the destructive and aggressive patterns show a marked rise in…
• There is nothing biologically unusual about a homosexual act of pseudocopulation. Many species indulge in this, under a variety of circumstances.
• The female covers her breasts, and then proceeds to redefine their shape with a brassiere. This sexual signaling device may be padded or inflatable, so…
• Monks, nuns, long-term spinsters and bachelors and permanent homosexuals are all, in a reproductive sense, aberrant. Society has bred them, but they have failed to…

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