“I am haunted by the human chimpanzees I saw [in Ireland] . . . I don't believe they are our fault. . . . But to see white chimpanzees is dreadful; if they were black, one would not feel it so much. . . .”

—  Charles Kingsley

In a letter written from Markree Castle, Sligo to his wife dated July 4th 1860. Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memoirs https://archive.org/details/charleskingsleyh00kingiala/page/308 (1877)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I am haunted by the human chimpanzees I saw [in Ireland] . . . I don't believe they are our fault. . . . But to see whi…" by Charles Kingsley?
Charles Kingsley photo
Charles Kingsley 50
English clergyman, historian and novelist 1819–1875

Related quotes

Arthur Jones (inventor) photo

“How would you feel if you lived on an island populated, apart from yourself, exclusively by retarded, malicious chimpanzees? Well, that’s how I feel. Don’t laugh, because you’re one of those retarded, malicious chimpanzees.”

Arthur Jones (inventor) (1926–2007) American inventor

The New High Intensity Training (2004)

Frans de Waal photo

“At the time, I was interested in reconciliation after fights, and I wanted to know how bonobos did it compared to chimpanzees. Very soon I discovered that they were much more sexual in everything they did, and that interested me — not so much for the sex part, even though that became a very hot topic, the peacemaking-through-sex thing — but much more how they have such a peaceful society, because they are much less violent than chimpanzees.”

Frans de Waal (1948) Dutch primatologist and ethologist

The Bonobo in All of Us (2007)

Charlotte Ross photo

“One of the reasons I became so involved in activism for primate conservation was not just from the books and movie’s I saw, but from looking into the eyes of a chimpanzee in a zoo. I’ll never forget it… it changed my life.”

Charlotte Ross (1968) American actress

"Award-Winning Animal Activist—Actress Charlotte Ross—Campaigns for Great Apes", interview with National Geographic (24 November 2013) https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/11/24/award-winning-animal-activist-actress-charlotte-ross-campaigns-for-great-apes/.

Richard Dawkins photo

“We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realise that we are apes. Our common ancestor with the chimpanzees and gorillas is much more recent than their common ancestor with the Asian apes — the gibbons and orangutans. There is no natural category that includes chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans but excludes humans.”

Richard Dawkins book A Devil's Chaplain

"Gaps in the Mind"
A Devil's Chaplain (2003)
Source: A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love

“It is hardly an exaggeration to say that a chimpanzee kept in solitude is not a real chimpanzee at all.”

Wolfgang Köhler book The Mentality of Apes

Source: The Mentality of Apes, 1925, p. 293.

Jane Goodall photo

“One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist
Kurt Vonnegut photo

““The hell with the human race!” said Beatrice.
“You’re a member of it, you know,” said Rumfoord.
“Then I’d like to put in for a transfer to the chimpanzees!” said Beatrice. “No chimpanzee husband would stand by while his wife lost all her coconuts.””

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 2 “Cheers in the Wirehouse” (p. 52)

Jared Diamond photo

“Put another way, the chimpanzees' closest relative is not the gorilla but humans.”

Jared Diamond book The Third Chimpanzee

The Third Chimpanzee (1991)
The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (1991)

Kurt Vonnegut photo

“Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Cold Turkey (2004)
Context: Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

Thomas Henry Huxley photo

“So far as cerebral structure goes… it is clear that Man differs less from the Chimpanzee or the Orang, than these do even from the Monkeys, and that the difference between the brains of the Chimpanzee and of Man is almost insignificant, when compared with that between the Chimpanzee brain and that of a Lemur.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

Source: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 120

Related topics