David Attenborough Quotes About Animals

Quotes about: Animals

• The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?

  David Attenborough

  Inspirational, Motivational, Book

• People are not going to care about animal conservation unless they think that animals are worthwhile.

  David Attenborough

  Animal, Thinking, People

• The only way to save a rhinoceros is to save the environment in which it lives, because there's a mutual dependency between it and millions of other species of both animals and plants.

  David Attenborough

  Animal, Rhinos, Way

• There are some four million different kinds of animals and plants in the world. Four million different solutions to the problems of staying alive.

  David Attenborough

  Animal, Four, Different

  "Life on Earth". TV Mini-Series, Documentary, www.imdb.com. 1979.

• I'm not an animal lover if that means you think things are nice if you can pat them, but I am intoxicated by animals.

  David Attenborough

  Nice, Mean, Animal

  "David Attenborough: I’m not an animal lover". Interview with Simon Gage, metro.co.uk. January 29, 2013.

• I like animals. I like natural history. The travel bit is not the important bit. The travel bit is what you have to do in order to go and look at animals.

  David Attenborough

  Travel, Animal, Order

• I'm not over-fond of animals. I am merely astounded by them.

  David Attenborough

  Animal, Astounded

• If we and the rest of the back-boned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if the invertebrates were to disappear, the world's ecosystems would collapse

  David Attenborough

  Nature, Animal, Ecosystems

• Sentimentalising is anathema, as far as I am concerned. It leads you into ethical problems about violence and killing and eating meat. The whole world becomes topsy-survy if you impose moralities that were evolved within human society on what a blowfly or what a parasite does... there are lots of emotions you can deduce from an animal's behaviour that are correct, but when you start saying it's feeling guilty or thinking or a loved one or mourning, you must be very careful of those feelings.

  David Attenborough

  Thinking, Animal, Mourning

• Birds are the most popular group in the animal kingdom. We feed them and tame them and think we know them. And yet they inhabit a world which is really rather mysterious.

  David Attenborough

  Thinking, Animal, Bird

• If you watch animals objectively for any length of time, you're driven to the conclusion that their main aim in life is to pass on their genes to the next generation.

  David Attenborough

  Animal, Watches, Generations

  "The Trials of Life". Documentary series, 1990.

• Steve Irwin did wonderful conservation work but I was uncomfortable about some of his stunts. Even if animals aren't aware that you are not treating them with respect, the viewers are.

  David Attenborough

  Animal, Wonderful, Conservation

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

• I've been bitten by a python. Not a very big one. I was being silly, saying: 'Oh, it's not poisonous' Then, wallop! But you have fear around animals.

  David Attenborough

  Silly, Animal, Python

• The process of making natural history films is to try to prevent the animal knowing you are there, so you get glimpses of a non-human world, and that is a transporting thing.

  David Attenborough

  Animal, Knowing, Trying

  "David Attenborough: 'I'm an essential evil'". Interview with Susanna Rustin, www.theguardian.com. October 21, 2011.

• The more you go on, the less you need people standing between you and the animal and the camera waving their arms about.

  David Attenborough

  Animal, People, Cameras

• I think the most alarming animals I have encountered are really poisonous snakes.

  David Attenborough

  Animal, Thinking, Snakes

  "The one question about life that still baffles him". Interview with Jenn Selby, www.independent.co.uk. January 28, 2015.

• Warm-bloodedness is one of the key factors that have enabled mammals to conquer the Earth, and to develop the most complex bodies in the animal kingdom. In this series, we will travel the world to discover just how varied and how astonishing mammals are.

  David Attenborough

  Animal, Keys, Mammals

  "The Life of Mammals". Documentary, 2002 - 2003.

• I'm not a propagandist, I'm not a polemicist; my primary interest is just looking at and trying to understand how animals work.

  David Attenborough

  Animal, Trying, Interest

  "David Attenborough: 'I'm an essential evil'". Interview with Susanna Rustin, www.theguardian.com. October 21, 2011.

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