Frans de Waal, in a NOVA interview, "The Bonobo in All of Us" PBS (1 January 2007); 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.

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.

— Jane Goodall

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "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." in the context of "Frans de Waal, in a NOVA interview, "The Bonobo in All of Us" PBS (1 January 2007); 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." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Jane Goodall" (Misattributed) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Jane Goodall

About Jane Goodall

Dame Jane Morris Goodall DBE, born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall (3 April 1934 – 1 October 2025), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, was an English primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist most famous for her study of chimpanzee social and family life in the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. She also founded the Jane Goodall Institute. In April 2002, she was named a UN Messenger of Peace.