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Desmond Morris QUOTES

Desmond Morris QUOTES

1 " I viewed my fellow man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape. "

― Desmond Morris , The Naked Ape

2 " ...In little more than a single century from 1820 to 19450, no less than fifty-nine million human animals were killed in inter-group clashes of one sort or another.... We describe these killings as men behaving "like animals," but if we could find a wild animal that showed signs of acting this way, it would be more precise to describe it as behaving like men. "

― Desmond Morris , The Human Zoo: A Zoologist's Study of the Urban Animal

3 " ...of eighteen kittens reared in the company of rodents, only three became rodent-killers later on. The other fifteen could not be trained to kill later by seeing other cats killing. For them the rodents had become 'family' and were no longer 'prey'. Even the three killers would not attack rodents of the same species as the one with which they were reared. "

― Desmond Morris , Catwatching: The Essential Guide To Cat Behaviour

4 " Frequently we imagine that we are behaving in a particular way because such behaviour accords with some abstract, lofty code of moral principles, when in reality all we are doing is obeying a deeply ingrained and long ‘forgotten’ set of purely imitative impressions. "

― Desmond Morris , The Naked Ape

5 " The news that is brought to us is nearly always bad news, but for every act of violence or destruction that occurs there are a million acts of peaceful friendliness. "

― Desmond Morris , The Naked Ape

6 " Clearly, then, the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo. The "

― Desmond Morris , The Human Zoo: A Zoologist's Study of the Urban Animal

7 " In an earlier chapter I mentioned recent research which has shown that the preference for sweet and fruity odours falls off dramatically at puberty, when there is a shift in favour of flowery, oily and musky odours. The juvenile weakness for sweetness can be easily exploited, and frequently is. "

― Desmond Morris , The Naked Ape

8 " The establishment’s reply is that dissenting students are bent, not on positive innovation, but on negative disruption. Against this, however, it can be argued that these two processes are very closely related and that the former only degenerates into the latter when it finds itself blocked. "

― Desmond Morris , The Human Zoo: A Zoologist's Study of the Urban Animal

9 " The word ‘love’ is, in fact, the way we commonly describe the emotional feelings that accompany the imprinting process. "

― Desmond Morris , The Human Zoo: A Zoologist's Study of the Urban Animal

10 " كثيرا ما نجد أصحاب السيارات يعلقون تمائم جالبة للحظ او أشياء شخصية مثل ما يضع مدراء المكاتب صور او أغراض شخصية فهـم يفعلون ذلك لتمييز حدودهم الجغرافية الفردية "

― Desmond Morris , The Naked Ape

11 " The only reason why we are always having the doctrine of original sin instilled into us, in one form or another, is that the artificial conditions of the super-tribe keep on working against our biological altruism, and it needs all the help it can get. "

― Desmond Morris , The Human Zoo: A Zoologist's Study of the Urban Animal

12 " As a species we may be technologically clever and philosophically brilliant, but we have not lost our animal property of being physically active; "

― Desmond Morris , Peoplewatching: The Desmond Morris Guide to Body Language

13 " Hemos llegado al punto en que debemos dejar de sentirnos satisfechos, la solución es evidente: reducir el ritmo de la natalidad, sin poner obstáculos a la estructura social existente; evitar un aumento en cantidad, sin impedir un aumento en calidad. "

― Desmond Morris , The Naked Ape

14 " Detrás de la fachada de la ciudad moderna, sigue morando el viejo mono desnudo. Sólo los nombres han cambiado: en vez de caza, decimos "trabajo"; en vez de campo de caza, "barrio comercial", en vez de cubil, "hogar", en vez de apareamiento, "matrimonio"; en vez de compañera, "esposa", etcétera. "

― Desmond Morris , The Naked Ape

15 " Por estudios realizados sobre otras especies en estado de superpoblación experimental, sabemos que llega un momento en el que el aumento de densidad de población alcanza un punto extremo en el que se destruye toda la estructura social. "

― Desmond Morris , The Naked Ape

16 " As a species we are a predominantly intelligent and exploratory animal, and beliefs harnessed to this fact will be the most beneficial for us. A belief in the validity of the acquisition of knowledge and a scientific understanding of the world we live in, the creation and appreciation of aesthetic phenomena in all their many forms, and the broadening and deepening of our range of experiences in day-to-day living, is rapidly becoming the 'religion' of our time. Experience and understanding are our rather abstract god-figures, and ignorance and stupidity will make them angry. Our schools and universities are our religious training centres, our libraries, museums, art galleries, theatres, concert halls and sports arenas are our places of communal worship. At home we worship with our books. newspapers. magazines, radios and television sets. In a sense, we still believe in an after-life, because part of the reward obtained from our creative works is the feeling that, through them, we will 'live on' after we are dead. Like all religions, this one has its dangers, but if we have to have one, and it seems that we do, then it certainly appears to be the one most suitable for the unique biological qualities of our species. Its adoption by an ever-growing majority of the world population can serve as a compensating and reassuring source of optimism to set against the pessimism (...) concerning our immediate future as a surviving species. "

― Desmond Morris , The Naked Ape

17 " We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species. "

― Desmond Morris

18 " Biologically speaking, if something bites you, it is more likely to be female. "

― Desmond Morris

19 " We may prefer to think of ourselves as fallen angels, but in reality we are rising apes. "

― Desmond Morris

20 " My writing, on the other hand, is always done with my readers in mind. I never write for my own amusement. I always try to put across an idea that I feel is important, in the most easily readable form I can manage. This has annoyed some of my academic colleagues, who feel that I am oversimplifying my subject, but I argue that at least my writings are widely read, while theirs stay firmly within the confines of their academic ivory towers. And I always work with one special rule in mind: simplification without distortion. This is, in fact, much harder than the usual self-indulgent academic writing. "

― Desmond Morris