Ape Quotes

Sure, I'd play an ape if they asked me. Maurice Evans did. ~ Joan Crawford

Glitch or not, we seem to need a power greater than ourselves. We seem to need enormous shadows of divinity stalking us. We know we are weak. Alcoholics are, above all, lonely, fearful pepole who make a fetish of loneliness, who think they
we
are too good to be part of the human race. And we have to be humbled to remember who we are
stumbling human beings, more ape than angel. ~ Erica Jong

The simplicity of meditation means just experiencing the ape instinct of ego. ~ Chogyam Trungpa

We are each of us the result of billions of years of the universe evolving toward its own splendor. And evolution builds: the very mitochondria that power our cells and give us life once existed as separate organisms that first infected our pre–pre–human ancestors and then became one with them. We each contain not only the slime mold and the worm, the fish and amphibian and reptile, but the pig and the ape and the barely human. If we look hard enough, we can discern hundreds of parts: kings and queens, warriors and troubadours, mages, bullies, and saints. And hustlers, adventurers, survivors, rebels, reactionaries, and rogues. And the part of us that wants to be more than human, or rather more fully human. I believe that we need to enlist all these separate selves into a single army of free companions who respect each other and love each other to the death. And who are willing to devote their lives to fight together in order to win a shared splendor.
I will return to this theme of integration again and again, for it is key to everything. All of my characters struggle with themselves, and face as well external obstacles such as exploding stars or dragons or icy wastelands cold enough to freeze the breath. Maram, who writes poems glorifying his second chakra (the body's sexual center), pants like a dog after every enticing woman he sees. Even as he resists his essential nobility and destiny as a hero, he insists that every man deserves at least one vice. When it is pointed ~ David Zindell

It's clearly possible for a something to acquire higher intelligence than its ancestors: we evolved to be smarter than our ape-like ancestors, and Einstein was smarter than his parents. ~ Stephen Hawking

This is my friend Veronica," I told him. "And this is Kaidan."
"Oh, I've heard all about you." Veronica gave him a big smile.
His brow elevated, but he didn't take the bait. Instead, he stared at me funny. "Nice wart." Leaning forward without touching me, he flicked the wart from the tip of my nose.
Veronica let out a loud cackle, proving she should be the one in my costume.
"I told you it was stupid!" She gloated.
With my pointer finger, I moved the paint around my nose to fill in the blank spot. When I finished, he was still watching me.
"Your hair's grown a lot," I said to him.
"So has your bottom."
My eyes rounded and blood rushed to my face. Veronica hooted with hilarity, bending at the waist. Even Jay let out a loud snicker, the traitor.
I wished Kaidan weren't so perceptive, but it was true. The feminine curves that had always eluded me were finally making an appearance. Stupid tight dress.
"Dude, you can get away with anything," said the pirate to the straight-faced ape.
"I meant it as a compliment."
"That was awesome." Veronica grabbed Jay by the hand. "Come on. Let's go find me a drink."
She winked at me as they ambled away. I gave my attention to the dry, trampled grass and scattered cans for a moment before working up the nerve to say something.
"My dad gave me a cell phone." And a car. And a ton of money.
Kaidan set the ape head on the ground and pulled his phone from a fuzzy pocket, blowi ~ Wendy Higgins

This is where the whole ape-descended thing reveals its worth, I thought madly. Sucks to be you, quadruped. Opposable thumbs - don't leave home without them. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

So in case you were wondering, I had no idea her friend was you," Gael said. "I wouldn't have tried to rope you into babysitting, I promise."

"I believe you," Sammy said. "Don't worry. We're hardly even friends, really, I just met her yesterday - ooh, look," she squealed, interrupting herself. "There's a baby elephant!"

Gael laughed. "I wouldn't have expected you to go ape-shit for baby animals."

Sammy raised an eyebrow. "Name one person with a soul who doesn't go apeshit for baby animals. They're, like, animals who are tiny. Who are you, the devil?"

Gael shook his head. "I like them, too. Obviously. But your voice went about a million levels higher just then."

Sammy crossed her arms. "Maybe you should question your ability to maintain an even tone of voice in the face of" - she smiled one of those weird upside-down smiles that little kids do when they're excited - "BABY ELEPHANTS. ~ Leah Konen

He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him has need of no other faculty than that of ape-like imitation. ~ John Stuart Mill

It's testosterone," Sandra explained. "Too much, the guy's an ape. Too little, he's an ant. ~ Haydn Wilks

The feat represents immense achievement for the neotenic ape, species Homo sapiens. But behind this lie twooldattributesoftheapetribalismandinquisitiveness. ~ Brian Aldiss

There are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes. One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens. The zoologist now has to start making comparisons. Where else is nudity at a premium. ~ Desmond Morris

Today's children are taught by our culture that we are a cosmic accident. Something slithered out of the primal slime and over billions of years evolved into a human being. We are cousins, ten times removed, to the ape at the zoo eating his own excrement. ~ Gary Bauer

I pull his hand up to my chest. "It's okay. Some of my best friends are in the mob. It must be really tough with your husband in prison."
"You THINK?" He pulls away, as if I've been insensitive, picks up a stone and throws it at a crow walking around in the grass.
As the crow screeches bloody murder and takes flight, escaping unscathed, Joshua darts in front of me, hits Tiger in the nuts and calls him a bitch.
Pulling Joshua back to my right, I glare down at him asking- WHAT did you CALL HIM?
"A BITCH."
"He's not a bitch."
"YES HE IS."
Tiger, coming to the rescue, kneels and places his hand on Joshua's shoulder. "Sorry little buddy. I didn't mean to make you go all APE shit. You like those little flying RATS."
Joshua shakes his finger at him. "THEY'RE NOT RATS... YOU BITCH."
As I start to give Joshua a lecture, Tiger stands up and stops me. "It's okay," he said. "Believe it or not- he's not the first to call me a bitch." Taking Joshua's free hand, he walks on his other side, while Joshua glares up at him with distrust. "Bitch isn't a word that you should be using. Not at your AGE."
"That's right," I agreed. "When you get older, you can call your girlfriend a bitch, but only in bed."
Joshua giggles. ~ Giorge Leedy

He pulled away the glove, and at the first glimpse of her fragile, white hand, all thoughts of negotiation fled. "I don't see how matters could become worse," he muttered. "I am already besotted with a needle-tongued, conceited, provoking ape leader of a lady."
Her head jerked up. "Besotted? You're nothing like it. Vengeful is more like it. Spiteful. ~ Loretta Chase

I was pretty young when I saw the original 'Planet of the Apes', and for a time in the seventies, I was pretty obsessed with it. ~ Gregory Keyes

Much were bent over in laughter. I pushed him, and he rolled to the floor without my intended insult. "Come off it!" I stamped my foot.
"What's so funny?" John asked, coming over in the middle of eating an apple. He tossed me an apple and I threw it at Much. He only laughed harder. "K-k-kissed Scar!" he hooted.
"Someone kissed you?" John asked, turning to me. He didn't look like it were too funny. "Who is he?"
This made Much laugh more.
"None of your business, John Little," I told him.
He stepped closer to me with a flat face that, if I could ape it, I'd never be kissed by a stupid girl when I didn't want to be. "Who, Scar?"
"Jenny Percy!" Much roared.
John's face broke open, like a smile could split a black
mood. "Wait till Rob hears this. ~ A.C. Gaughen

The German poet Goethe once said that "he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth." I don't want you to end up in such a sad state. I will do what I can to acquaint you with your historical roots. It is the only way to become a human being. It is the only way to become more than a naked ape. It is the only way to avoid floating in a vacuum. ~ Jostein Gaarder

At twenty a man is a peacock, at thirty a lion, at forty a camel, at fifty a serpent, at sixty a dog, at seventy an ape, at eighty a nothing at all. ~ Baltasar Gracian

A mere ape in our world may be a scholar in its own, and the low life of any beast may be a source of deep satisfaction for the beast itself. ~ Jeffrey Kluger

I'm Jarra, I'm an Earth girl, and I'm proud of it. You can laugh at me for being an ape if youwant, but there are only eleven living people entitled to wear the Artemis, and I'm one of them. I'm proud of that too. ~ Janet Edwards

the word "nature" and the word "techno" mean the same thing . depends if you look at it from the past or from the future . for example , a little cabin in the mountains : an ape thinks it's techno , it is the future . but for us it has become nature . we must live with both . it is very important . we can't be just nature or just techno .
the word "nature" and the word "techno" mean the same thing . depends if you look at it from the past or from the future . for example , a little cabin in the mountains : an ape thinks it's techno , it is the future . but for us it has become nature . we must live with both . it is very important . we can't be just nature or just techno . ~ Bjork

Our ape-like and arboreal ancestors entered upon the first of many short cuts. To crack a marrow-bone with a rock was the act which fathered the tool, and between the cracking of a marrow-bone and the riding down town in an automobile lies only a difference of degree. ~ Jack London

Being both more systematically brutal than chimps and more empathetic than
bonobos, we are by far the most bipolar ape. Our societies are never completely peaceful, never completely competitive, never ruled by sheer selfishness, and never perfectly moral. ~ Frans De Waal

I'm not bloody well going to have it, understand?" Vimes shouted, shaking the ape back and forth.
"Oook," the Librarian pointed out, patiently.
"What? Oh. Sorry." Vimes lowered the ape, who wisely didn't make an issue out of it because a man angry enough to lift 300 pounds of orangutan without noticing is a man with too much on his mind. ~ Terry Pratchett

All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment ... ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The Tale of Human Evolution

The subject most often brought up by advocates of the
theory of evolution is the subject of the origin of man.

The Darwinist claim holds that modern man evolved from ape-like
creatures. During this alleged evolutionary process, which is
supposed to have started 4-5 million years ago, some "transitional
forms" between modern man and his ancestors are
supposed to have existed. According to this completely
imaginary scenario, four basic "categories" are listed:

1. Australopithecus
2. Homo habilis
3. Homo erectus
4. Homo sapiens

Evolutionists call man's so-called first ape-like ancestors
Australopithecus, which means "South African ape."

These living beings are actually nothing but an old ape
species that has become extinct.

Extensive research done on various Australopithecus specimens by two world famous anatomists from England and the USA, namely,
Lord Solly Zuckerman and Prof. Charles Oxnard, shows
that these apes belonged to an ordinary ape species that
became extinct and bore no resemblance to humans.

Evolutionists classify the next stage of human evolution
as "homo," that is "man." According to their claim, the living
beings in the Homo series are more developed than
Australopithecus. Evolutionists devise a fanciful evolution
scheme by arranging different fossils of these creature ~ Harun Yahya

And the ape and the man exist in one body; and when the ape's desires are about to be fulfilled, he disappears and is succeeded by the man, who is disgusted with the ape's appetite. ~ Colin Wilson

You can do something that walks a line, and invariably, whatever that line is, it will be crossed by people who don't know any better and want to ape the success. ~ David Fincher

If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. ~ G.K. Chesterton

If a man has too much arm and leg hair, he is not a man, just merely an ape. ~ Young-Joon Choi

If God used evolution, God came from an ape. ~ Ken Ham

Anthropological theory assumes that exposure in a treeless situation where all escape upwards was cut off led to the invention of myths. Kafka's ape, dragged into human society, expresses very similar ideas in his 'Report for an Academy'. It is the absence of any way of escape that has forced him to become human himself. ~ W.G. Sebald

What an ugly beast the ape, and how like us. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

The Croft
East Dene, Sussex


August 11th, 1922


My dear Watson,

I have taken our discussion of this afternoon to heart, considered it carefully, and am prepared to modify my previous opinions.
I am amenable to your publishing your account of the incidents of 1903, specifically of the final case before my retirement, under the following conditions.
In addition to the usual changes that you would make to disguise actual people and places, I would suggest that you replace the entire scenario we encountered (I speak of Professor Presbury's garden. I shall not write of it further here) with monkey glands, or a similar extract from the testes of an ape or lemur, sent by some foreign mystery-man. Perhaps the monkey-extract could have the effect of making Professor Presbury move like an ape - he could be some kind of "creeping man," perhaps? - or possibly make him able to clamber up the sides of buildings and up trees. I would suggest that he grow a tail, but this might be too fanciful even for you, Watson, although no more fanciful than many of the rococo additions you have made in your histories to otherwise humdrum events in my life and work.
In addition, I have written the following speech, to be delivered by myself, at the end of your narrative. Please make certain that something much like this is there, in which I inveigh against living too long, and the foolish urges that push foolish people to do foolish things t ~ Neil Gaiman

Oh we're not together. I mean, we're sitting together and we came here together but obviously we're not together-together. How could we be together? I'm probably never going to see him again after today. We're not even friends. I don't even know him. I mean, you know, really-" I inclined my head toward her and a small laugh burst from my lips, "can you even imagine? It'd be like Planet of the Apes- and he's Charlton Heston with all the muscles and such and I'm that girl ape. They can't be together because it'd be like a Neanderthal with a human, cross species breeding ... and that's just not right. Although Neanderthals are closely related to humans and are in fact part of the same species- if you want to be precise- they are a sub-species or alternate species of human ... ~ Penny Reid

There was no sense in blowing everything away for the sake of some violent ape I'd never even met. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Apes have a wide variety of sexual arrangements. That means, by the way, that there is no such thing as an "ape legacy" that humans are doomed to live by. ~ Steven Pinker

On August 16, 1996, when an eight-year-old female gorilla named Binti Jua helped a three-year-old boy who had fallen eighteen feet into the primate exhibit at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo. Reacting immediately, Binti scooped up the boy and carried him to safety. She sat down on a log in a stream, cradling the boy in her lap, giving him a few gentle back pats before taking him to the waiting zoo staff. This simple act of sympathy, captured on video and shown around the world, touched many hearts, and Binti was hailed as a heroine. It was the first time in U.S. history that an ape figured in the speeches of leading politicians, who held her up as a model of compassion. ~ Frans De Waal

Dr. Kertesz mentioned to me a case known to him of a farmer who had developed prosopagnosia and in consequence could no longer distinguish (the faces of) his cows, and of another such patient, an attendant in a Natural History Museum, who mistook his own reflection for the diorama of an ape ~ Oliver Sacks

The higher the Ape goes, the more he shewes his taile.
[The higher the ape goes, the more he shows his tail.] ~ George Herbert

ZANY, n. A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the _buffone_, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play. The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as we to-day have the unhappiness to know him. In the zany we see an example of creation; in the humorist, of transmission. Another excellent specimen of the modern zany is the curate, who apes the rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who apes the devil. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Richard: You really like it, don't you.
Gabrielle: What?
Richard: Life.
Gabrielle: Oh! Every morning when I wake up and I see there's a whole new other day, I just go absolutely ape! ~ George Axelrod

What would you do, sir, if terrorists were killing 45,000 people every year in this country? Well, the current health care system, the insurance companies, and those who support them are doing just that ... Because they die individually of disease and not disaster, [radio host] Neal Boortz and those who ape him in office and out, approve their deaths, all 45,000 of them - a year - in America. Remind me again, who are the terrorists? ~ Keith Olbermann

I still can't believe we are tracking Bigfoot," Sophie whispered as she stared at the giant footprint in the muddy soil. Each massive toe was as wide as her arm, and the print formed a deep, mucky puddle.

Dex laughed, flashing two perfect dimples as he stood on his tiptoes to examine a scuff in the bark of a nearby tree. "Do humans really think there's a giant hairy ape-man running around trying to eat them?"

Sophie turned away, pulling her blond hair around her face to hide her flushing cheeks. "Pretty crazy, right? ~ Shannon Messenger

Greatness, in order to gain recognition, must all too often consent to ape greatness. ~ Jean Rostand

I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character ... by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none. ~ Carl Linnaeus

There is hardly an American male of my generation who has not at one time or another tried to master the victory cry of the great ape as it issued from the androgynous chest of Johnny Weissmuller, to the accompaniment of thousands of arms and legs snapping during attempts to swing from tree to tree in the backyards of the Republic. ~ Gore Vidal

It was astonishing how loudly one laughed at tales of gruesome things, of war's brutality-I with the rest of them. I think at the bottom of it was a sense of the ironical contrast between the normal ways of civilian life and this hark-back to the caveman code. It made all our old philosophy of life monstrously ridiculous. It played the "hat trick" with the gentility of modern manners. Men who had been brought up to Christian virtues, who had prattled their little prayers at mothers' knees, who had grown up to a love of poetry, painting, music, the gentle arts, over-sensitized to the subtleties of half-tones, delicate scales of emotion, fastidious in their choice of words, in their sense of beauty, found themselves compelled to live and act like ape-men; and it was abominably funny. They laughed at the most frightful episodes, which revealed this contrast between civilized ethics and the old beast law. The more revolting it was the more, sometimes, they shouted with laughter, especially in reminiscence, when the tale was told in the gilded salon of a French chateau, or at a mess-table.

It was, I think, the laughter of mortals at the trick which had been played on them by an ironical fate. They had been taught to believe that the whole object of life was to reach out to beauty and love, and that mankind, in its progress to perfection, had killed the beast instinct, cruelty, blood-lust, the primitive, savage law of survival by tooth and claw and club and ax. All poetr ~ Phillip Gibbs

Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man. ~ H.L. Mencken

To embrace the belief that man is the accidental product of a random and otherwise genetically and biologically impossible Darwinian gradual evolution allegedly monitored by a quasi-fictitious natural selection, a process that supposedly started with an amoeba nobody knows how it arrived on Earth that somehow became a fish with stumps for legs that turned crocodile, a creature that following successive transmutations "evolved" into an ape that ended up as Leonardo Da Vinci is an attitude that comes in conflict with the scientific method of research and it certainly violates its standard principles. ~ Paul Greene

It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump. ~ David Ormsby-Gore, 5th Baron Harlech

When we are acting like God, we are being ourselves! The ramifications of having God as our Daddy (rather than some ape dragging his knuckles in the African jungle somewhere) is life changing. I hope you can see that what you believe about your origin makes a difference in the way you value yourself and humanity in general. ~ Kris Vallotton

But why, Mr. Stendahl, why all this? What obsessed you?" "Bureaucracy, Mr. Garrett. But I haven't time to explain. The government will discover soon enough." He nodded to the ape. "All right. Now." The ape killed Mr. Garrett. ~ Ray Bradbury

Put it this way: If I had to go back to 1968 and wear the makeup that John Chambers made for the original 'Planet of the Apes' series, I think I would rather wear a unitard. ~ Andy Serkis

A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Cheaters never prosper, we tell ourselves. But the ape in us knows it's not true. Clumsy, untutored, cheats never prosper. They are discovered and suffer the consequences [ ... ]But what we apes despise is the clumsiness of their effort, the ineptness, the gaucherie. The ape in us does not despise the cheating itself; [ ... ] ~ Mark Rowlands

The unparalleled extravagance of English rule has demented the rajas and the maharajas who, unmindful of consequences, ape it and grind their subjects to dust. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

The irrational in the human has something about it altogether repulsive and terrible, as we see in the maniac, the miser, the drunkard or the ape. ~ George Santayana

Is man an ape or an angel? Now I am on the side of the angels. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

The thing that sticks to me most about theater is that because it's such an ape crazy nonstop experience, you really don't have time to think about anything else. You're just really present; you have to be, or else, you know, you can't stop the play. ~ Sebastian Stan

But what do you care about Qorlec?" went on Dr. Zorgone. "I heard you escaped Alsa Sif V, and immediately upon your departure," he frowned, "you set coordinates for Earth?" He laughed softly, nastily, and Quinn felt anger shiver through her to see the twinkling mockery in his eyes.

"What would your people think to know that, I wonder?" continued Dr. Zorgone, tilting his head. "The first place you ran to wasn't Qorlec, wasn't the ancient home of your 'mighty' ancestors, but the polluted shit-ball of ape people? The true home of the true empress is Earth." His eyes danced over her, searching, hungry. "You speak Roknal and English fluently, but I bet you don't know a damn lick of Aviye. The entirian princess isn't even entirian --"

"What do you want?" Quinn said abruptly.

"What do I want?" repeated Dr. Zorgone, rolling his eyes to the starry sky. "Let's see . . . What do I want? I always wanted an indoor pool."

Quinn's lips tightened. ~ Ash Gray

Civilization is only possible for deeply unpleasant animals. It is only an ape that can be truly civilized. ~ Mark Rowlands

Hey
jazz hands!" Kenji barks. "Get your ass back over here." He makes it a point to look as irritated as possible. "Back to work. And this time, focus. You're not an ape. Don't just throw your shit everywhere. ~ Tahereh Mafi

A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the "buffone", or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Hair and hole, horn and teeth - hedgehog, walrus, ape, Josef Breuer. He ~ Irvin D. Yalom

There is no escape. You can't be a vagabond and an artist and still be a solid citizen, a wholesome, upstanding man. You want to get drunk, so you have to accept the hangover. You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and the nausea. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death. Say yes to everything, shirk nothing. Don't try to lie to yourself. You are not a solid citizen. You are not a Greek. You are not harmonious, or the master of yourself. You are a bird in the storm. Let it storm! Let it drive you! How much have you lied! A thousand times, even in your poems and books, you have played the harmonious man, the wise man, the happy, the enlightened man. In the same way, men attacking in war have played heroes, while their bowels twitched. My God, what a poor ape, what a fencer in the mirror man is- particularly the artist- particularly myself! ~ Hermann Hesse

But the one thing all of the people in the Ape Yard had in common was that they were trapped, caught in that basin of poverty and servitude to Doc Bobo in the hollow, and held in place by the weight of the white structure beyond. For them, escape seemed futile at the outset. ~ Jeff Fields

After all, when 'the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become' He resolved to 'wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created – and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground – for I regret that I have made them' (Genesis 6:7). The Bible thinks it is perfectly all right to destroy all animals as punishment for the crimes of Homo sapiens, as if the existence of giraffes, pelicans and ladybirds has lost all purpose if humans misbehave. The Bible could not imagine a scenario in which God repents having created Homo sapiens, wipes this sinful ape off the face of the earth, and then spends eternity enjoying the antics of ostriches, kangaroos and panda bears. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

For let us not underestimate the Christian: the Christian, false to the point of innocence, is far above the ape-regarding Christians, a well known theory of descent becomes a mere compliment. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Man is an ape with possibilities. ~ Roy Chapman Andrews

What right do we have to claim, as some might, that human beings are the only inhabitants of our planet blessed with an actual ability to be "aware"? ... The impression of a "conscious presence" is indeed very strong with me when I look at a dog or a cat or, especially, when an ape or monkey at the zoo looks at me. I do not ask that they are "self-aware" in any strong sense (though I would guess that an element of self-awareness can be present). All I ask is that they sometimes simply feel ! ~ Roger Penrose

One can take the ape out of the jungle, but not the jungle out of the ape. ~ Frans De Waal

I'm with the Naked Ape." Jareen said. "Let's get in there and kick some evil overlord butt. ~ Gini Koch

So they, who climb to wealth, forget
The friends in darker fortunes tried.
I copied them
but I regret
That I should ape the ways of pride. ~ William C. Bryant

Really hairy backs on men turn me off. I'm not into the ape thing at all. Or beer bellies and flabby arms, either. Also, one random nose hair which is longer than the others ... that's gross. ~ Nadine Velazquez

Merciful heaven, Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man, Dressed in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured His glassy essence
like an angry ape Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens, would all themselves laugh mortal. ~ William Shakespeare

In giving rise to man, the evolutionary process has, apparently for the first and only time in the history of the Cosmos, become conscious of itself.
So, the Devil's Chaplain might conclude, Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence; the gift of revulsion against its implications; the gift of foresight - something utterly foreign to the blundering short-term ways of natural selection - and the gift of internalizing the very cosmos. ~ Richard Dawkins

That is my dilemma. Because if I was led by God to love God, step by step, as it seemed, if I accept that the beauty and the rapture were real and true, the rest of it was God's will too, and that, gentlemen, is cause for bitterness. But if I am simply a deluded ape who took a lot of old folktales far too seriously, then I brought all this on myself and my companions and the whole business becomes farcical, doesn't it. The problem with atheism, I find, under these circumstances ... is that I have no one to despise but myself. If, however, I choose to believe that God is vicious, then at least I have the solace of hating God. ~ Mary Doria Russell

We're still just the world's premium brand of ape. ~ Rick Bayan

Any ape can reach for a banana, but only humans can reach for the stars. ~ V.S. Ramachandran

Why should we, the brains of the military, have so much anxiety about our contribution to the war that we feel we have to ape Special Forces guys?
To Fitzgerald commandos were just glorified jocks - pitchers and quarterbacks from suburban high schools who traded baseballs for bullets. There's no doubt they had skills. They could slither right up to the enemy on their stomachs survive on worms for days and plunk a target with a piece of lead from a mile away. All very impressive. But they couldn't speak Arabic or juggle a million intelligence requirements and 703 follow-up questions from the community while sitting three feet away from some Islamic firebrand who has no reason to talk.
"Do you think those Special Forces guys are wracked with Interrogator envy?" Fitzgerald would say. "You think they're over there in their special sunglasses polishing their special weapons saying 'man if only I could do some hot-shit interrogations and write some hot-shit reports? ~ Chris Mackey

If then, said I, the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessing great means and influence and yet who employs those faculties for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion-I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape. ~ Thomas Huxley

Without an alternative world against which he can measure, compare and contrast his own, without an example of what natural perfection would actually look like, sound like, smell and taste like, the thinking man - the inquisitive risen ape - is rendered fundamentally incapable of ever faithfully auditing the cell he calls his garden, and with that disability entrenched, his blindness is near complete. The world is as it is. Things are the way they are. You make do with what you have, lust for the things you do not, cut off your arm - if you must - to save your life , and strive for some future you desire, or at the very least believe possible, because in the final analysis, "I don't want to be here," means very, very little if there is nowhere else to be. ~ John Zande

You have evolved from worm to man, but much within you is still worm. Once you were apes, yet even now man is more of an ape than any of the apes. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Along with people in other creative professions, such as artists and musicians, many scientists experience this transcendence. I do so every day. For one, it's impossible to look an ape in the eye and not see oneself. There are other animals with frontally oriented eyes, but none that give you the shock of recognitions of the ape's. Looking back at you is not so much an animal but a personality as solid and willful as yourself. ~ Frans De Waal

Coyness wasn't the only thing Ardetta had been aggressive about and he'd had to summon up all his southern chivalry to turn her down gently. When he'd relented and obliged her with a kiss, she'd been on him like ugly on an ape. He'd narrowly escaped her clutches with his honor intact. ~ Joanna Jordan

I never knew my father, my mother was an ape ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

English Law: where there are two alternatives: one intelligent, one stupid; one attractive, one vulgar; one noble, one ape-like; one serious and sincere, one undignified and false; one far-sighted, one short; EVERYBODY will INVARIABLY choose the latter. ~ Cyril Connolly

I feel certain that the largest part of all photographs ever taken or being taken or ever to be taken, is and will continue to be, portraits. This is not only true, it is also necessary. We are not solitary mammals, like the elephant, the whale and the ape. What is most profoundly felt between us, even if hidden, will reappear in our portraits of one another. ~ Ben Maddow

The idea that humans could be related to ape-like ancestors and the rest of creation was considered subversive. If man was just an animal, then he doesn't live forever, he has no soul. And if men don't have a soul, then there's no afterlife. No heaven, no fiery deterrent of hell to keep people in line in this life. And if there's no fiery deterrent to keep people in line, "well then we might as well have hell on Earth!" the critics said. ~ James Moore

Parental love is a matchless thing; if it weren't for that, most of us wouldn't have a pot to piss in, affectionately speaking. But even at its most irreplacable, it's still pretty cheap. Any ape loves their children; spiders lie still while theirs crawl around inside them, happy to let them eat their guts.
The only reason anybody unrelated is ever nice to anyone else, meanwhile, is as a sort of pre-emptive emotional strike - to prevent themselves from being treated as badly, potentially, as they might have treated other people. Which makes love only the lie two brains on spines tell each other, the lie that says: "You exist, because I love you. You exist, because you can see yourself in my eyes."
So we blunder from hope to hope, hollowed and searching. All of us equally incomplete.
And after all these years, still the sting comes, the liquid pressure in the chest and nose, the migraine-forerunner frown. Phantom pain. The ghost without the murder.
But what the fuck? That's all it is, ever. You want to be loved. You tell other people you love them, in order to trick them into loving you back. And after a while, it's true. You feel the pull, the ache. ~ Gemma Files

Poem"

"Two communities outside Birmingham, Alabama, are
still searching for their dead." - News Telecast

And tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock in Springfield, Massachusetts,
my oldest aunt will be buried from a convent.
Spring is here and I'm staying here, I'm not going.
Do birds fly? I am thinking my own thoughts, who else's?

When I die, don't come, I wouldn't want a leaf
to turn away from the sun - it loves it there.
There's nothing so spiritual about being happy
but you can't miss a day of it, because it doesn't last.

So this is the devil's desire? Well I was born to dance.
It's a sacred duty, like being in love with an ape,
and eventually I'll reach some great conclusion, like assumption,
when at last I meet exhaustion in these flowers, go straight up. ~ Frank O'Hara

That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all." There ~ G.K. Chesterton

An adult female orang-utan cannot defeat an adult male spotted hyena. That is the plain empirical truth. Let it become known among zoologists. Had Orange Juice been a male, had she loomed as large on the scales as she did in my heart, it might have been another matter. But portly and overfed though she was from living in the comfort of a zoo, even so she tipped the scales at barely 110 pounds. Female orang-utans are half the size of males. But it is not simply a question of weight and brute strength. Orange Juice was far from defenseless. What it comes down to is attitude and knowledge. What does a fruit eater know about killing? Where would it learn where to bite, how hard, for how long? An orang-utan may be taller, may have very strong and agile arms and long canines, but if it does not know how to use these as weapons, they are of little use. The hyena, with only its jaws, will overcome the ape because it knows what it wants and how to get it. ~ Yann Martel

The human being does not hop out of the magician's hat in the way that the ape climbs down from the tree; he also does not emerge from the hand of a creator who surveys everything in advance with his foreknowledge. He is the product of a production that is not itself a human being. The human being was not yet what he would become before he became it. ~ Peter Sloterdijk

He seemed like a walking blasphemy, a blend of the angel and the ape. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Lower your gaze because you become less of a human every time you stare at a woman and you stare at her like she's a piece of meat, like she's an animal. That just means you've lost respect for a fellow human being. You're looking at her like an ape looks at a female ape, like a dog looks at a female dog.That's all, you've turned into an animal. Regain your humanity. Lower your gaze. ~ Nouman Ali Khan

I would rather be a transformed ape than a degenerate son of Adam. ~ Carl Sagan

'Ape House' is an ambitious novel in several ways, for which it is to be admired, and it is certainly an easy read, but because Gruen is not quite prepared for the philosophical implications of her subject, it is not as deeply involving emotionally or as interesting thematically as it could be. ~ Jane Smiley