Quotes from Jane Goodall

We need nature, but nature does not need us.

Yes, I have found children living in underprivileged communities are very motivated to help others. I am always very moved when I see the excitement in the eyes of these children when I tell them they can make a difference. That the world needs them. Above all, that they matter.

That's wonderful, but doesn't it feel like a drop in the ocean, given the overwhelming autocracy or tyranny that people are facing around the world?" "But millions of drops actually make the ocean." I smiled. Hope, checkmate.

When I was in Mexico, I was told how mescaline was extracted from the peyote cactus.

Peyote has been used medicinally in many different contexts by several Native American cultures. The Tarahumara of northwest Mexico held long-distance races from

that with courage and determination the impossible becomes possible.

Hope," Jane said, "is what enables us to keep going in the face of adversity. It is what we desire to happen, but we must be prepared to work hard to make it so.

If only we had listened to the scientists studying zoonotic diseases who have long warned that such a pandemic was inevitable if we continued to disrespect nature and disrespect animals. But their warnings fell on deaf ears. We didn't listen and now we are paying a terrible price.

we now know, for all fynbos species. It is the heating of the soil as the fire sweeps across the ground that breaks seed dormancy.

We don't really know how it will all turn out, do we? And we can't just think that we can do nothing and everything will work out for the best.

China has banned the eating of wild animals, and there is hope that the use of wild animal parts for medicine will also come to an end.

I am feeling wonder and awe about this incredible world we live in. And the truth is, we're destroying it before we've even finished learning about it. We think we are smarter than nature, but we are not. Our human intellect is amazing, but we must be humble and recognize that there is an even greater intelligence in nature.

But like our intellect, social media in itself is neither good nor bad—it is the use to which we put it that counts.

Archbishop Tutu once explained to me that suffering can either embitter us or ennoble us, and it tends to ennoble us if we are able to make meaning out of our suffering and use it for the benefit of others.

Without meaning, life is empty and day will follow day, month will follow month

When we focus on the future, we do one of three things. We fantasize, which involves big dreams that are mostly for fun and entertainment; we dwell, which involves focusing on all the bad stuff that might happen—this was the official pastime of my hometown—or we hope, which involves envisioning the future while recognizing the inevitability of challenges.

deaths of despair escalating in terrifying ways as people struggled with the dislocation and isolation that the pandemic had caused.

I am so glad TV had not been invented then—it meant I had to, and most certainly did, exercise and develop my powers of imagination.

a great deal of our onslaught on Mother Nature is not really lack of intelligence but a lack of compassion for future generations and the health of the planet:

animals have minds capable of solving problems, as well as emotions and very definite personalities

It is important to take action and to realize that we Can make a difference, and this will encourage others to take action and then we realize we are not alone and our cumulative actions truly make an even greater difference. This is how we spread the Light. And this, of course, makes us all even more hopeful.

It is now clear not only that all the trees in the forest are interconnected below the ground but also that each of the largest and oldest trees serves as a "mother tree," with younger trees growing within her root-fungi network.

there seems to be a disconnect between our clever brain and our compassionate heart.

When a mother tree is cut down, this is likely to have an adverse effect on the development of the young, replacement seedling, and thus the regeneration of the entire forest may be compromised.