Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by David Attenborough, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring David Attenborough quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 126 David Attenborough quotes for you to read and share.
The whole of science, and one is tempted to think the whole of the life of any thinking man, is trying to come to terms with the relationship between yourself and the natural world. Why are you here, and how do you fit in, and what's it all about. -- 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
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
If we [humans] disappeared overnight, the world would probably be better off. -- David Attenborough
Cameramen are among the most extraordinarily able and competent people I know. They have to have an insight into natural history that gives them a sixth sense of what the creature is going to do, so they can be ready to follow. -- David Attenborough
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
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
If my grandchildren were to look at me and say, 'You were aware species were disappearing and you did nothing, you said nothing', that I think is culpable. I don't know how much more they expect me to be doing, I'd better ask them. -- David Attenborough
Young people: They care. They know that this is the world that they're going to grow up in, that they're going to spend the rest of their lives in. But, I think it's more idealistic than that. They actually believe that humanity, human species, has no right to destroy and despoil regardless. -- David Attenborough
I just wish the world was twice as big and half of it was still unexplored. -- David Attenborough
Do we really require so many gardening programmes, makeover programmes or celebrity chefs? -- David Attenborough
You can cry about death and very properly so, your own as well as anybody else's. But it's inevitable, so you'd better grapple with it and cope and be aware that not only is it inevitable, but it has always been inevitable, if you see what I mean. -- David Attenborough
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
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
Apart from anything else, I am designed by evolution, like we all are: if we see a little thing like that, big eyes, tiny nose, we go 'aaah'. That's what evolution does. We are programmed to do that. So to find babies the most amazing, isn't surprising, I don't think. -- David Attenborough
I can mention many moments that were unforgettable and revelatory. But the most single revelatory three minutes was the first time I put on scuba gear and dived on a coral reef. It's just the unbelievable fact that you can move in three dimensions. -- David Attenborough
I mean, it is an extraordinary thing that a large proportion of your country and my country, of the citizens, never see a wild creature from dawn 'til dusk, unless it's a pigeon, which isn't really wild, which might come and settle near them. -- David Attenborough
Well, I'm having a good time. Which makes me feel guilty too. How very English. -- David Attenborough
Bringing nature into the classroom can kindle a fascination and passion for the diversity of life on earth and can motivate a sense of responsibility to safeguard it. -- 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
In the Baboon community, it is not how strong you are that is important, but who you know that counts -- David Attenborough
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
Life is not all high emotion. Some of the most interesting things are when its not highly emotional: little details of relationships and body language. -- David Attenborough
An understanding of the natural world and what's in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfillment. -- David Attenborough
It's coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It's not just climate change; it's sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now. -- David Attenborough
You can only get really unpopular decisions through if the electorate is convinced of the value of the environment. That's what natural history programmes should be for. -- David Attenborough
Natural history is not about producing fables. -- David Attenborough
Its about cherishing the woodland at the bottom of your garden or the stream that runs through it. It affects every aspect of life. -- David Attenborough
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
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
When I was a boy in the 1930s, the carbon dioxide level was still below 300 parts per million. This year, it reached 382, the highest figure for hundreds of thousands of years. -- David Attenborough
I'm absolutely strict about it. When I land, I put my watch right, and I don't care what I feel like, I will go to bed at half past eleven. If that means going to bed early or late, that's what I live by. As soon as you get there, live by that time. -- 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
I would be absolutely astounded if population growth and industrialisation and all the stuff we are pumping into the atmosphere hadn't changed the climatic balance. Of course it has. There is no valid argument for denial. -- David Attenborough
The idea that the Lord had given us a present, that the world is a gift from God ... well, the amount of stuff, back then, that the Lord was giving away was limited. We do not have dominion. -- David Attenborough
That people will object very much to seeing a predator killing its prey, and yet, in the news, will accept showing shots of people shooting one another. -- David Attenborough
I'd like to see the giant squid. Nobody has ever seen one. I could tell you people who have spent thousands and thousands of pounds trying to see giant squid. I mean, we know they exist because we have seen dead ones. But I have never seen a living one. Nor has anybody else. -- 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
The human population can no longer be allowed to grow in the same old uncontrollable way. If we do not take charge of our population size, then nature will do it for us and it is the poor people of the world who will suffer most -- David Attenborough
I find it far more awesome, wonderful, that creation; our appearance in the world; should be the culmination, or at least one of the latest products of 3,000 Million years of organic evolution, than a kind of country trick, taking a rib out of a man's side in a trance. -- David Attenborough
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
It is vital that there is a narrator figure whom people believe. That's why I never do commercials. If I started saying that margarine was the same as motherhood, people would think I was a liar. -- 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
The notion of ever more old people needing ever more young people, who in turn will grow old and need ever more young people and so on, ad infinitum, is an obvious ecological Ponzi scheme. -- David Attenborough
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
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
I don't approve of sunbathing, and it's bad for you. -- David Attenborough
The reverse side of the coin in having this extraordinary ability to go anywhere, is that no one anywhere is remote any more. -- David Attenborough
Getting to places like Bangkok or Singapore was a hell of a sweat. But when you got there it was the back of beyond. It was just a series of small tin sheds. -- David Attenborough
People are not going to care about animal conservation unless they think that animals are worthwhile. -- David Attenborough
I don't think we are going to become extinct. We're very clever and extremely resourceful - and we will find ways of preserving ourselves, of that I'm sure. But whether our lives will be as rich as they are now is another question. -- David Attenborough
I'm no longer sceptical. I no longer have any doubt at all. I think climate change is the major challenge facing the world. -- David Attenborough
Clearly we could devastate the world ... as far as we know, the Earth is the only place in the universe where there is life. Its continued survival now rests in our hands -- David Attenborough
We can now destroy or we can cherish-the choice is ours. -- David Attenborough
I believe the Abominable Snowman may be real. I think there may be something in that. -- David Attenborough
Before the BBC, I joined the Navy in order to travel. -- David Attenborough
To suggest that God specifically created a worm to torture small African children is blasphemy as far as I can see. The Archbishop of Canterbury doesn't believe that. -- 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
The World is full of wonders, but they become more Wonderful, not less Wonderful when Science looks at them. -- David Attenborough
Nothing in the natural world makes sense - except when seen in the light of evolution -- David Attenborough
The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it. -- David Attenborough
How could I look my grandchildren in the eye and say I knew what was happening to the world and did nothing. -- David Attenborough
Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird? -- David Attenborough
We really need to kick the carbon habit and stop making our energy from burning things. Climate change is also really important. You can wreck one rainforest then move, drain one area of resources and move onto another, but climate change is global. -- 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
Children start off reading in books about lions and giraffes and so on, but they also-if theyre lucky enough and have reasonable privileges of any human being-are able to go into a garden and turn over stone and see a worm and see a slug and see an ant. -- David Attenborough
No one will protect what they don't care about; and no one will care about what they have never experiened -- 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
It never really occurred to me to believe in God. -- David Attenborough
All life is related. And it enables us to construct with confidence the complex tree that represents the history of life -- David Attenborough
It's extraordinary how self-obsessed human beings are. The things that people always go on about is, 'tell us about us', 'tell us about the first human being'. We are so self-obsessed with our own history. There is so much more out there than what connects to us. -- David Attenborough
As far as I'm concerned, if there is a supreme being then He chose organic evolution as a way of bringing into existence the natural world ... which doesn't seem to me to be necessarily blasphemous at all. -- David Attenborough
It was regarded as a responsibility of the BBC to provide programs which have a broad spectrum of interest, and if there was a hole in that spectrum, then the BBC would fill it. -- David Attenborough
Nature isn't positive in that way. It doesn't aim itself at you. It's not being unkind to you. -- David Attenborough
Trade is a proper and decent relationship, with dignity and respect on both sides. -- David Attenborough
Very few species have survived unchanged. There's one called lingula, which is a little shellfish, a little brachiopod about the size of my fingernail, that has survived for 500 million years, but it's survived by being unobtrusive and doing nothing, and you can't accuse human beings of that. -- David Attenborough
In the old days ... it was a basic, cardinal fact that producers didn't have opinions. When I was producing natural history programmes, I didn't use them as vehicles for my own opinion. They were factual programmes. -- David Attenborough
I don't like rats, but there's not much else I don't like. The problem with rats is they have no fear of human beings, they're loaded with foul diseases, they would run the place given half the chance, and I've had them leap out of a lavatory while I've been sitting on it. -- David Attenborough
I suffer much less than many of my colleagues. I am perfectly able to go to Australia and film within three hours of arrival. -- David Attenborough
I have no doubt that the fundamental problem the planet faces is the enormous increase in the human population -- David Attenborough
Television of course actually started in Britain in 1936, and it was a monopoly, and there was only one broadcaster and it operated on a license which is not the same as a government grant. -- David Attenborough
Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment -- David Attenborough
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
I'm not in politics. -- David Attenborough
You have to steer a course between not appalling people, but at the same time not misleading them. -- David Attenborough
One in eight plant species face extinction. -- David Attenborough
I'm not over-fond of animals. I am merely astounded by them. -- David Attenborough
It's like saying that two and two equals four, but if you wish to believe it, it could also be five ... Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact, every bit as much as the historical fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066. -- David Attenborough
What I am interested in with birds, just as I am with spiders or monkeys, is what they do and why they do it. -- David Attenborough
I had a huge advantage when I started 50 years ago - my job was secure. I didn't have to promote myself. These days there's far more pressure to make a mark, so the temptation is to make adventure television or personality shows. I hope the more didactic approach won't be lost. -- David Attenborough
The correct scientific response to something that is not understood must always be to look harder for the explanation, not give up and assume a supernatural cause. -- David Attenborough
There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it. -- David Attenborough
I'm swanning round the world looking at the most fabulously interesting things. Such good fortune. -- David Attenborough
The climate suits me, and London has the greatest serious music that you can hear any day of the week in the world - you think it's going to be Vienna or Paris or somewhere, but if you go to Vienna or Paris and say, 'Let's hear some good music', there isn't any. -- David Attenborough
People talk about doom-laden scenarios happening in the future: they are happening in Africa now. You can see it perfectly clearly. Periodic famines are due to too many people living on land that can't sustain them. -- David Attenborough
It's a moral question about whether we have the right to exterminate species. -- David Attenborough
All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people and harder - and ultimately impossible to solve - with ever more people. -- 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
London has fine museums, the British Library is one of the greatest library institutions in the world ... It's got everything you want, really. -- David Attenborough
We are not overpopulated in an absolute sense; we've got the technology for 10 billion, probably 15 billion people, to live on this planet and live good lives. What we haven't done is developed our technology. -- David Attenborough
I think we're lucky to be living when we are, because things are going to get worse. -- David Attenborough
Being in touch with the natural world is crucial. -- David Attenborough
We are a plague on the Earth. -- David Attenborough
Now, I find that very difficult to reconcile with notions about a merciful God. -- David Attenborough
Can a growing human population still leave space for wildlife? -- 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
What humans do over the next 50 years will determine the fate of all life on the planet. -- David Attenborough
I'm against this huge globalisation on the basis of economic advantage. -- David Attenborough
Since when has Finland been a rotten place to live in? -- David Attenborough
If I can make programmes when I'm 95, that would be fine. But I would think I'll have had enough by then. -- David Attenborough
Dealing with global warming doesn't mean we have all got to suddenly stop breathing. Dealing with global warming means that we have to stop waste, and if you travel for no reason whatsoever, that is a waste. -- David Attenborough
I've been to Nepal, but I'd like to go to Tibet. It must be a wonderful place to go. I don't think there's anything there, but it would be a nice place to visit. -- David Attenborough
Crying wolf is a real danger. -- 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
I think a major element of jetlag is psychological. Nobody ever tells me what time it is at home. -- David Attenborough
All we can hope for is that the thing is going to slowly and imperceptibly shift. All I can say is that 50 years ago there were no such thing as environmental policies. -- David Attenborough
It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for - the whole thing - rather than just one or two stars. -- David Attenborough
The climate, the economic situation, rising birth rates; none of these things give me a lot of hope or reason to be optimistic. -- David Attenborough
There are perfectly good independent small nations. -- David Attenborough
I often get letters, quite frequently, from people who say how they like the programmes a lot, but I never give credit to the almighty power that created nature. -- David Attenborough
Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth on a planet with finite resources is either a madman or an economist. -- David Attenborough
If I can bicycle, I bicycle. -- David Attenborough
We can now manipulate images to such an extrodinary extent that there's no lie you cannot tell. -- David Attenborough
It is curiosity, quite right-a divine curiosity. A characteristic of the gods is curiosity. -- David Attenborough
I am an ardent recycler. I would like to think that it works. I don't know whether it does or not. -- David Attenborough
The fundamental issue is the moral issue. -- David Attenborough