David Attenborough: Trending quotes (page 3)

“There are some four million different kinds of animals and plants in the world. Four million different solutions to the problems of staying alive. This is the story of how a few of them came to be as they are.”

David Attenborough

Opening narration
Life on Earth (1979)

World , Problem , Animals

“To suggest that God specifically created a worm to torture small African children is blasphemy as far as I can see.”

David Attenborough

Interview in Metro 29 Jan 2013

God , Children

“Make a list of all the environmental and social problems that today afflict us and our poor battered planet. – not just the extinction of species and animals and plants, that fifty years ago was the first signs of impending global disaster, but traffic congestion, oil prices, pressure on the health service, the growth of mega-cities, migration patterns, immigration policies, unemployment, the loss of arable land, desertification, famine, increasingly violent weather, the acidification of the oceans, the collapse of fish stocks, rising sea temperatures, the loss of rain forest. The list goes on and on. But they all share an underlying cause. Every one of these global problems, environmental as well as social becomes more difficult – and ultimately impossible - to solve with ever more people.”

David Attenborough

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)

People , Health , Problem , Fish

“Trade is a proper and decent relationship, with dignity and respect on both sides.”

David Attenborough

44 min 10 sec, On civil behavior when encountering the uncontacted Biami tribe https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsynjb?start=2640
A Blank on the Map (1971)

“This is the Earth - our planet, home to millions of different species, but only one species dominates everything - human beings. There are nearly seven billion of us living on the Earth, and the human population is increasing by more than two people every second; two hundred thousand people every day; nearly eighty million people every year. Each additional life needs food, energy, water, shelter, and hopefully a whole lot more. m0s0-m0s43”

David Attenborough

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)

Life , People , Food , Home

“Today we're living in an era in which the biggest threat to human well-being, to other species and to the Earth as we know it might well be ourselves. The issue of population size is always controversial because it touches on the most personal decisions we make, but we ignore it at our peril. m0s50-m1-13”

David Attenborough

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)

Decision , Personality

“If you understand about the natural world, we’re a part of the system and you can’t feed lions grass. But because we have the intelligence to choose… But we haven’t got the gut to allow us to be totally vegetarian for a start. You can tell by the shape of our guts and the shape of our teeth that we evolved to be omnivores. We aren't carnivores like lions but neither are we elephants.”

David Attenborough

When asked if realising that animals are intelligent makes him want to be a vegetarian.
Interview in Metro 29 Jan 2013

World , Intelligence , Understanding , Nature

“In Rwanda children inherit land from their parents but in a country where the average family has more than five children that can only mean one thing – smaller parcels of land to live off. m30s00-m30s12”

David Attenborough

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)

Children , Family , Parent , Country

“In the south west of India lies the long narrow coastal state of Kerala. Most of its thirty-two million inhabitants live off the land and the ocean, a rich tropical ecosystem watered by two monsoons a year. It's also one of India's most crowded states - but the population is stable because nearly everybody has small families… At the root of it all is education. Thanks to a long tradition of compulsory schooling for boys and girls Kerala has one of the highest literacy rates in the World. Where women are well educated they tend to choose to have smaller families… What Kerala shows is that you don't need aggressive policies or government incentives for birthrates to fall. Everywhere in the world where women have access to education and have the freedom to run their own lives, on the whole they and their partners have been choosing to have smaller families than their parents. But reducing birthrates is very difficult to achieve without a simple piece of medical technology, contraception. m35s09-m38s21”

David Attenborough

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)

Women , World , Education , School

“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.”

David Attenborough

Closing lines
The Life of Birds (1998)

Beauty , Knowledge , Bird , Time

“Immensely powerful though we are today, it's equally clear that we're going to be even more powerful tomorrow. And what's more there will be greater compulsion upon us to use our power as the number of human beings on Earth increases still further. 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.”

David Attenborough

Closing lines
The Living Planet (1984)

Life , World , Universe

“I can't pretend that I got involved with filming the natural world fifty years ago because I had some great banner to carry about conservation - not at all, I always had a huge pleasure in just watching the natural world and seeing what happens. - I made those films because it was a hugely enjoyable thing to do. But as I went on making them it became more and more apparent that the creatures that were giving me so much joy were under threat. The fun is in delighting in the animals but if you do that you owe them something so you have an obligation to speak out and to do what you can to protect them. m3s08-m4s05”

David Attenborough

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)

Pleasure , World , Nature , Animals

“I was born into a world of just under two billion people today there are nearly seven billion of us. Whenever I hear those numbers I can honestly say I find it incredible, triple the number of human beings in what seems like the blink of an eye and the world transformed utterly. Human population density is a factor in every environmental problem I have ever encountered, from urban sprawl to urban overcrowding; disappearing tropical forests to ugly sinks of plastic waste, and now the relentless increase of atmospheric pollution. I've spent much of the last 50 years seeking wilderness filming animals in their natural habitat and, to some extent, avoiding humans. But, over the years, true wilderness has become harder to find. m1s58-m3s03”

David Attenborough

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)

People , World , Nature , Problem

“Human beings are good at many things, but thinking about our species as a whole is not one of our strong points. m4s45-m4s53”

David Attenborough

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)

Thinking , Strong

“The fact that so few creatures can tolerate these conditions means that any animal that can, has the place to itself and so can proliferate in vast numbers.”

David Attenborough

"The Limits of Endurance"
The Life of Birds (1998)

Animals

“Each [pelican] has already survived many perils in its young life. As a chick, it fought battles with its brothers and sisters and won.”

David Attenborough

"The Problems of Parenthood"
The Life of Birds (1998)

Life , Sister

“The battle between cuckoos and other birds is a continuing one. The cuckoos developing new stratagems and perhaps finding new victims, and the victims finding new defences.”

David Attenborough

"The Demands of the Egg"
The Life of Birds (1998)

Bird

“You might think that a hornbill would have the most powerful excavation tool of all, but in fact its huge beak is a relatively delicate structure and no use at all as a chisel.”

David Attenborough

"The Demands of the Egg"
The Life of Birds (1998)

Thinking

“To many of us, however, this is the most delectable of natural sounds. It's an hour before dawn, it's spring, this is an English woodland. All around, the dawn chorus. It's so familiar that perhaps we take it for granted.”

David Attenborough

"The Eloquent Communicators"
The Life of Birds (1998)

Spring , Nature

“Penguins underwater look somewhat like dolphins, and indeed the two families have similar evolutionary histories.”

David Attenborough

"Fishing for a Living"
The Life of Birds (1998)

Family , History