Top 169 Quotes & Sayings by David Attenborough - Page 2

I am an ardent recycler. I would like to think that it works. I don't know whether it does or not.

We are not overpopulated in an absolute sense; we've got the technology for 10 billion, probably 15 billion people, to live on this planet and live good lives. What we haven't done is developed our technology.

I would be absolutely astounded if population growth and industrialisation and all the stuff we are pumping into the atmosphere hadn't changed the climatic balance. Of course it has. There is no valid argument for denial.

You have to steer a course between not appalling people, but at the same time not misleading them.

People talk about doom-laden scenarios happening in the future: they are happening in Africa now. You can see it perfectly clearly. Periodic famines are due to too many people living on land that can't sustain them.

The more you go on, the less you need people standing between you and the animal and the camera waving their arms about.

The whole of science, and one is tempted to think the whole of the life of any thinking man, is trying to come to terms with the relationship between yourself and the natural world. Why are you here, and how do you fit in, and what's it all about.

Nature isn't positive in that way. It doesn't aim itself at you. It's not being unkind to you.

I don't approve of sunbathing, and it's bad for you.

What I am interested in with birds, just as I am with spiders or monkeys, is what they do and why they do it.

I'm not a propagandist, I'm not a polemicist; my primary interest is just looking at and trying to understand how animals work.

Well, I'm having a good time. Which makes me feel guilty too. How very English.

The process of making natural history films is to try to prevent the animal knowing you are there, so you get glimpses of a non-human world, and that is a transporting thing.

I'm luckier than my grandfather, who didn't move more than five miles from the village in which he was born.

In the old days... it was a basic, cardinal fact that producers didn't have opinions. When I was producing natural history programmes, I didn't use them as vehicles for my own opinion. They were factual programmes.

I'm not in politics.

The fundamental issue is the moral issue.

The climate suits me, and London has the greatest serious music that you can hear any day of the week in the world - you think it's going to be Vienna or Paris or somewhere, but if you go to Vienna or Paris and say, 'Let's hear some good music', there isn't any.

You can only get really unpopular decisions through if the electorate is convinced of the value of the environment. That's what natural history programmes should be for.

As far as I'm concerned, if there is a supreme being then He chose organic evolution as a way of bringing into existence the natural world... which doesn't seem to me to be necessarily blasphemous at all.

Cameramen are among the most extraordinarily able and competent people I know. They have to have an insight into natural history that gives them a sixth sense of what the creature is going to do, so they can be ready to follow.

I had a huge advantage when I started 50 years ago - my job was secure. I didn't have to promote myself. These days there's far more pressure to make a mark, so the temptation is to make adventure television or personality shows. I hope the more didactic approach won't be lost.

The climate, the economic situation, rising birth rates; none of these things give me a lot of hope or reason to be optimistic.

The human population can no longer be allowed to grow in the same old uncontrollable way. If we do not take charge of our population size, then nature will do it for us and it is the poor people of the world who will suffer most

I have no doubt that the fundamental problem the planet faces is the enormous increase in the human population

An understanding of the natural world and what's in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfillment...

I suppose happiness is something one enjoys, but I suspect that happiness is not a state but rather a transition.

We can now manipulate images to such an extrodinary extent that there's no lie you cannot tell.

What humans do over the next 50 years will determine the fate of all life on the planet.

[W]hen we look at the graphs of rising ocean temperatures, rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and so on, we know that they are climbing far more steeply than can be accounted for by the natural oscillation of the weather ... What people (must) do is to change their behavior and their attitudes ... If we do care about our grandchildren then we have to do something, and we have to demand that our governments do something.

The World is full of wonders, but they become more Wonderful, not less Wonderful when Science looks at them.

Clearly we could devastate the world... as far as we know, the Earth is the only place in the universe where there is life. Its continued survival now rests in our hands

Bringing nature into the classroom can kindle a fascination and passion for the diversity of life on earth and can motivate a sense of responsibility to safeguard it.

Reptiles and amphibians are sometimes thought of as primitive, dull and dimwitted. In fact, of course, they can be lethally fast, spectacularly beautiful, surprisingly affectionate and very sophisticated.

I'm not over-fond of animals. I am merely astounded by them.

Life is not all high emotion. Some of the most interesting things are when its not highly emotional: little details of relationships and body language.

The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lays upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the earth.

The future of life on earth depends on our ability to take action. Many individuals are doing what they can, but real success can only come if there's a change in our societies and our economics and in our politics. I've been lucky in my lifetime to see some of the greatest spectacles that the natural world has to offer. Surely we have a responsibility to leave for future generations a planet that is healthy, inhabitable by all species

We can now destroy or we can cherish-the choice is ours.

The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.

The correct scientific response to something that is not understood must always be to look harder for the explanation, not give up and assume a supernatural cause.

All life is related. And it enables us to construct with confidence the complex tree that represents the history of life

I don't know [why we're here]. People sometimes say to me, 'Why don't you admit that the humming bird, the butterfly, the Bird of Paradise are proof of the wonderful things produced by Creation?' And I always say, well, when you say that, you've also got to think of a little boy sitting on a river bank, like here, in West Africa, that's got a little worm, a living organism, in his eye and boring through the eyeball and is slowly turning him blind. The Creator God that you believe in, presumably, also made that little worm. Now I personally find that difficult to accommodate.

I'm no longer sceptical. I no longer have any doubt at all. I think climate change is the major challenge facing the world.

Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth on a planet with finite resources is either a madman or an economist.

Children start off reading in books about lions and giraffes and so on, but they also-if theyre lucky enough and have reasonable privileges of any human being-are able to go into a garden and turn over stone and see a worm and see a slug and see an ant.

Birds were flying from continent to continent long before we were. They reached the coldest place on Earth, Antarctica, long before we did. They can survive in the hottest of deserts. Some can remain on the wing for years at a time. They can girdle the globe. Now, we have taken over the earth and the sea and the sky, but with skill and care and knowledge, we can ensure that there is still a place on Earth for birds in all their beauty and variety - if we want to... And surely, we should.

If we were all to reduce our demands for energy, it would make an enormous amount of difference.

Climate change will affect the whole of humanity, while terrorist attacks will only affect a small section of humanity. Of course, you wouldn't say that if you were related to someone who had been beheaded or blown up or murdered. But humanity is facing a very big, slow, long, drawn-out threat, and that is to do with the way the weather is changing and the size of the population.

Its about cherishing the woodland at the bottom of your garden or the stream that runs through it. It affects every aspect of life.

How could I look my grandchildren in the eye and say I knew what was happening to the world and did nothing.

Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment

Anyone who believes in indefinite growth on a physically finite planet is either mad or an economist

It never really occurred to me to believe in God.

The nature of human beings is that they'd far rather face the disaster that is happening tonight than the one that is happening tomorrow.

?Using his burgeoning intelligence, this most successful of all mammals has exploited the environment to produce food for an ever increasing population. Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it's time we controlled the population to allow the survival of the environment.

Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a co-ordinated view about the planet, it's going to get worse and worse.

No one will protect what they don't care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced.

If we [humans] disappeared overnight, the world would probably be better off.

Nothing in the natural world makes sense - except when seen in the light of evolution