39 Monkey Quotes Full Of Primate Wisdom

"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

"The puma is, with the exception of some monkeys, the most playful animal in existence."
- William Henry Hudson

"Monkey, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees."
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

"Yeah, dolphins and monkeys basically could play chess together. Those are brilliant animals."
- Perry DeAngelis

"In Kenya you've got the great birds and monkeys leaping through the trees overhead. It's a chance to remember what the world is really like."
- Joanna Lumley

"Mother Nature is always speaking. She speaks in a language understood within the peaceful mind of the sincere observer. Leopards, cobras, monkeys, rivers and trees; they all served as my teachers when I lived as a wanderer in the Himalayan foothills."
- Radhanath Swami

"Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats; all human life is there."
- Henry James

"Who are we? That is the big question. And essentially we are just an upright-walking, big-brained, super-intelligent ape."
- Louise Leakey

"Very close cousins like humans and chimps have almost all their genes in common. Slightly less close cousins like humans and monkeys still have recognizably the same genes. You could carry on right on down to humans and bacteria, and you will find continuous compelling evidence for the hierarchical tree of cousinship."
- Richard Dawkins

"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special."
- Stephen Hawking

"Evolution was far more thrilling to me than the biblical account. Who would not rather be a rising ape than a falling angel? To my juvenile eyes, Darwin was proved true every day. It doesn't take much to make us flip back into monkeys again."
- Terry Pratchett

"I think the discomfort that some people feel in going to the monkey cages at the zoo is a warning sign."
- Carl Sagan

"We read our children stories starring elephants and monkeys and bears to teach them about nobility, curiosity and courage, to warn them against selfishness and stubbornness."
- Lydia Millet

"One of my most laughable moments was when we visited the monkeys in Ubud - they really seemed to like me and at one point, I had three males on my head and shoulders."
- Carolyn Murphy

"‘Friend Monkey' is really my favorite of all my books because the Hindu myth on which it is based is my favorite - the myth of the Monkey Lord who loved so much that he created chaos wherever he went."
- P. L Travers

"As a child, I loved to climb on the tree, like a monkey."
- Phan Thi Kim Phuc

"In Africa, you know, if you're poor, at least you can go to the forest and share some mangoes with the gorillas and monkey"
- Emmanuel Jal

"I was very into animals and nature, and really obsessed with cats and monkeys. I used to play in the woods, wander off into the woods for hours. I'd bring a clipboard and think that I was doing some work out there, following the trails of raccoons or collecting bird feathers."
- Tig Notaro

"People go to the zoo and they like the lion because it's scary. And the bear because it's intense, but the monkey makes people laugh."
- Lorne Michaels

"The mind is a monkey, hopping around from thought to thought, image to image. Rarely do more than a few seconds go by in which the mind can remain single-pointed, empty."
- Dani Shapiro

"Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town."
- George Carlin

"Once I finished, I got that procrastination monkey off my back! And I started seeing doors opening."
- Eric Thomas

"Distraction is the main problem for us all - what the Buddha called the monkey mind. We need to tame this monkey mind."
- Tenzin Palmo

"A monkey glances up and sees a banana, and that's as far as he looks. A visionary looks up and sees the moon."
- Eoin Colfer

"Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room."
- Winston Churchill

"When you're dealing with monkeys, you've got to expect some wrenches."
- Alvah Bessie

"I learned the way a monkey learns - by watching its parents."
- Prince Charles

"You never monkey with the truth."
- Ben Bradlee

"People will always work harder if they're getting well paid and if they're afraid of losing a job which they know will be hard to equal. As is well known, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys."
- Armand Hammer

"Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage."
- H. L. Mencken

"Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward."
- C. S. Lewis

"The Destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees."
- T. H. White

"Men give up one thing to take up another, but in spite of numerous changes they do not find peace. They are no better than monkeys who let go one bough to take hold of another, only to let it go again."
- Gautama Buddha

"Man is an ape with possibilities."
- Roy Chapman Andrews

"Monkeys are superior to men in this: when a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey."
- Malcolm de Chazal

"Monkey can make a long jump with his muscles; and man, with his wisdom!"
- Mehmet Murat Ildan

"An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men."
- Charles Darwin

"If you could cross a lion and a monkey, that's what I'd be, because monkeys are funny and lions are strong."
- Marlon Wayans

"People talk too much. Humans aren't descended from monkeys. They come from parrots."
- Carlos Ruiz Zafon