Top 127 Quotes & Sayings by Frans de Waal - Page 3

Wild groups of chimpanzees attack their enemies like gangs. What they completely lack, precisely because of their strong territorial behavior, is a friendly relationship with their neighbors.

We justify the inequalities by saying some people are just better and smarter than others and the strong should survive and the poor can die off.

The chimpanzees could tear me apart in no time. They're many times stronger than we are.

When someone brutally kills someone else, we call him "animalistic." But we consider ourselves "human" when we give to the poor.

The development of family entities enables men to cooperate far more effectively. Instead of constantly competing for the women with other men, each man essentially has a partner assigned to him, one with whom he can establish a family.

In humans, the family prevents infanticide. Next to language, the core family, consisting of a mother, a father and children, is the greatest difference between us and other primates.

As far as the environment is concerned, I am becoming pessimistic because I do not see anybody stepping up and taking the long view approach. It seems like we're stuck in a tragedy of the commons where everyone is trying to contribute as little as possible to get out of this situation.