“I think if we study the primates, we notice that a lot of these things that we value in ourselves, such as human morality, have a connection with primate behavior.”

— Jane Goodall

Frans de Waal, in a NOVA interview, " The Bonobo in All of Us" PBS (1 January 2007) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/bonobo-all-us.html; quotes from this interview were for some time misplaced on this page, which probably generated similar misattributions elsewhere, and the misplacement was not discovered until after this quotation had been selected for Quote of the Day, as a quote of Goodall. Corrections were subsequently made here, during the day the quote was posted as QOTD.
Misattributed
Context: I think if we study the primates, we notice that a lot of these things that we value in ourselves, such as human morality, have a connection with primate behavior. This completely changes the perspective, if you start thinking that actually we tap into our biological resources to become moral beings. That gives a completely different view of ourselves than this nasty selfish-gene type view that has been promoted for the last 25 years.

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Jane Goodall 48

British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist 1934

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“I think if we study the primates, we notice that a lot of these things that we value in ourselves, such as human morality, have a connection with primate behavior. This completely changes the perspective, if you start thinking that actually we tap into our biological resources to become moral beings. That gives a completely different view of ourselves than this nasty selfish-gene type view that has been promoted for the last 25 years.”

Frans de Waal (1948) Dutch primatologist and ethologist

“I think it's one of the scars in our culture that we have too high an opinion of ourselves. We align ourselves with the angels instead of the higher primates.”

Angela Carter (1940–1992) English novelist

Interview http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/collections/mt/pdf/85_01_20.pdf in Marxism Today, January 1985.
Context: I'm interested in the division that Judeo-Christianity has made between human nature and animal nature. None of the other great faiths in the world have got quite that division between us and them. None of the others has made this enormous division between birds and beasts who, as Darwin said, would have developed consciences if they'd had the chance, and us. I think it's one of the scars in Western Europe. I think it's one of the scars in our culture that we have too high an opinion of ourselves. We align ourselves with the angels instead of the higher primates.

“If you start putting very large numbers of human brain cells into primates, suddenly you might transform primates into something that has some of the capacities that we regard as distinctively human – speech or other ways of being able to manipulate or relate to a human. These possibilities, at the moment, are largely being explored in fiction but we need to start thinking about them now.”

Thomas Baldwin (philosopher) (1947) British philosopher

As quoted in Medical research warning over human cells in animals https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/jul/22/medical-research-humans-animals-regulation by Alok Jha, 22 July 2011, The Guardian.

“I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and Religion (1999)
Context: It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropomorphic concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near to those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order and harmony which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems.

From a letter to Murray W. Gross (26 April 1947), p. 138

“The More we value things, the less we value ourselves”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

“In many cases, humans think themselves as the culmination of all knowledge. In fact, more things we don't know about ourselves. Without knowledge of the source of that truth, humans cannot exist. Humans have no value.”

Titon Rahmawan

“Human artifacts are not stains imposed on nature. Such a view drives a wedge between humanity and the rest of the community of life. A golf ball is the manifestation of the mind of a clever, playful African primate. This primate loves to invent games to test its physical and mental skill. Generally, these games are played on carefully reconstructed replicas of the savanna from which the ape came and for which its subconscious still hankers. The clever primate belongs in this world. … To love nature and to hate humanity is illogical.”

David G. Haskell (1950) writer, Biologist

"August 8th — Earthstar," pages 157-158
The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature http://theforestunseen.com/ (2012)

“Human beings are made to have a connection with the Gods and yet we have separated ourselves from them.”

Patxi Xabier Lezama Perier (1967) sculptor and writer

Quoted on Contemporary art, http://coolturamagazine.com/xabier-lezama-mitologia-vasca/, February 15, 2020.

“Amazing how much we’ve managed to do, considering how we’re doing it all with jumped-up social primates and evolutionary behaviors from the Pleistocene.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 31 (p. 325)

“The values connection is very important. We have to strengthen that connection.”

Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj (1963) Mongolian politician

Source: "In Mongolia, lessons for Obama from Genghis Khan" in The Washington Post https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EvpE54wq368J:https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/in-mongolia-lessons-for-obama-from-genghis-khan/2011/06/15/AG7JrOWH_story.html+&cd=38&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (15 June 2011)
Context: If America invests in that, America will have many friends who live on their own, not with bombs or American troops.

“I think if we study the primates, we notice that a lot of these things that we value in ourselves, such as human morality, have a connection with primate behavior.”

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Jane Goodall 48

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