David Attenborough quotes

It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living. (David Attenborough)
People must feel that the natural world is important and valuable and beautiful and wonderful and an amazement and a pleasure.
David Attenborough
I just wish the world was twice as big and half of it was still unexplored.
David Attenborough
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
I'm against this huge globalisation on the basis of economic advantage.
David Attenborough
It's a moral question about whether we have the right to exterminate species.
David Attenborough
The savage, rocky shores of Christmas Island, 200 miles south of Java, in the Indian Ocean. It's November, the moon is in its third quarter, and the sun is just setting. In a few hours from now, on this very shore, a thousand million lives will be launched.
David Attenborough
Birds were flying from continent to continent long before we were. They reached the coldest place on Earth, Antarctica, long before we did. They can survive in the hottest of deserts. Some can remain on the wing for years at a time. They can girdle the globe. Now, we have taken over the earth and the sea and the sky, but with skill and care and knowledge, we can ensure that there is still a place on Earth for birds in all their beauty and variety - if we want to... And surely, we should.
David Attenborough
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
Being in touch with the natural world is crucial.
David Attenborough
Reptiles and amphibians are sometimes thought of as primitive, dull and dimwitted. In fact, of course, they can be lethally fast, spectacularly beautiful, surprisingly affectionate and very sophisticated. (David Attenborough)
Many individuals are doing what they can. But real success can only come if there is a change in our societies and in our economics and in our politics.
David Attenborough
Birds are the most accomplished aeronauts the world has ever seen. They fly high and low, at great speed, and very slowly. And always with extraordinary precision and control.
David Attenborough
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
The fundamental issue is the moral issue.
David Attenborough
Trade is a proper and decent relationship, with dignity and respect on both sides.
David Attenborough
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
At a time when it's possible for thirty people to stand on the top of Everest in one day, Antarctica still remains a remote, lonely and desolate continent. A place where it's possible to see the splendours and immensities of the natural world at its most dramatic and, what's more, witness them almost exactly as they were, long, long before human beings ever arrived on the surface of this planet. Long may it remain so.
David Attenborough
I'm luckier than my grandfather, who didn't move more than five miles from the village in which he was born.
David Attenborough
I don't run a car, have never run a car. I could say that this is because I have this extremely tender environmentalist conscience, but the fact is I hate driving.
David Attenborough
You know, it is a terrible thing to appear on television, because people think that you actually know what you're talking about. (David Attenborough)
And this is where it went. In places all around the eastern Mediterranean the sea is separated from the mainland by strips of flat marshy land like this. Made up of the soil that once clothed the hills beyond. All this was deposited during the last 2000 years. This is the marsh that now separates the sea from the city of Ephesus. These ruined buildings mark the edge of the quay where once merchant ships lay moored. As the harbour died, so did the trade upon which the city's wealth was based, and so, well, ultimately did Ephesus itself. What was once one of the most splendid cities in the Roman Empire fell into decay and was abandoned.
David Attenborough
I support a group called the Optimum Population Trust which campaigns to reduce birth rates because I think, if we keep on growing, we're not only going to damage nature but we're likely to see even more inequality and human suffering. m4s08-m4s43.
David Attenborough
Midwinter, and the countryside is so still, it seems almost lifeless. But these trees and bushes and grasses around me are living organisms just like animals. And they have to face very much the same sort of problems as animals face throughout their lives if they're to survive. They have to fight one another, they have to compete for mates, they have to invade new territories. But the reason that we're seldom aware of these dramas is that plants of course live on a different time-scale.
David Attenborough
The thing about a bush baby is that the male establishes its territory by peeing on his hands and putting it all on the walls. And after you've had a pair for about six months, you can see people coming into the house, sniffing and going: ‘Now, that's definitely not mulligatawny soup.
David Attenborough