If I were God, I'd work on the reach of empathy.

To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us.

The enemy of science is not religion... . The true enemy is the substitution of thought, reflection, and curiosity with dogma.

If we look straight and deep into a chimpanzee's eyes, an intelligent self-assured personality looks back at us. If they are animals, what must we be?

If you ask anyone, what is morality based on? These are the two factors that always come out: One is reciprocity, … a sense of fairness, and the other one is empathy and compassion.

Darwin wasn't just provocative in saying that we descend from the apes - he didn't go far enough. We are apes in every way, from our long arms and tailless bodies to our habits and temperament.

Perhaps it's just me, but I am wary of any persons whose belief system is the only thing standing between them and repulsive behavior.

We are territorial, power-hungry and even more brutal than chimpanzees.

The possibility that empathy resides in parts of the brain so ancient that we share them with rats should give pause to anyone comparing politicians with those poor, underestimated creatures.

We are by far the most contradictory of all primates. An animal with this much internal conflict has never lived on this earth.

Socialism cannot function, because its economic reward structure is contrary to human nature.

You are still what you think, despite what others think about you!

If something wants to be a story, it will be.

To be a good actor you have to be something like a criminal, to be willing to break the rules to strive for something new.

Australia, to the rest of the world, is just far away, and Australia in the Thirties was the faraway of the faraway.

An illuminating read for every classical scholar engaged with the current quest for the subject's roots, and the excavation of the way that it has evolved over the past century and a half.

Conscience allows us to do two things: Pass judgment on ourselves; approve or condemn our own conduct.

If you're holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time.

Children deserve to be reared in a home with a father and a mother.

The great thing as an actor is that I don't know what my agent is going to call me with next.

I enjoy singing, and the instruments which truly move me are the horn, the trumpet and the cello.