"A sparrow can be as interesting as a bird of paradise, the behaviour of a mouse as interesting as that of a tiger. Our planet is beautifully intricate, brimming over with enigmas to be solved and riddles to be unravelled. Many people think that conservation is just about saving fluffy animals – what they don’t realise is that we’re trying to prevent the human race from committing suicide … We have declared war on the biological world, the world that supports us … At the moment the human race is in the position of a man sawing off the tree branch he is sitting on. Look at it this way. Anyone who has got any pleasure at all from living should try to put something back. Life is like a superlative meal and the world is the maître d'hôtel. What I am doing is the equivalent of leaving a reasonable tip. … I'm glad to be giving something back because I've been so extraordinarily lucky and had such great pleasure from it."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Naturalists from EnglandChildren's authorsNon-fiction authors from EnglandBiologists from EnglandZoologists from England
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
As quoted in Gerald Durrell: The Authorised Biography (1999) by Douglas Botting
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gerald_Durrell
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Gerald Durrell
Gerald "Gerry" Malcolm Durrell (7 January 1925 – 30 January 1995) was a naturalist, zookeeper, author, and television presenter, most famous for founding what is now called the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust on the Channel Island of Jersey and for writing a number of books based on his animal-collecting and conservation expeditions. He was the brother of Lawrence Durrell.
26 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Gerald Durrell →
Related Quotes
"I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, …"
"There is no first world and third world. There is only one world, for all of us to live and delight in."
"If naturalists go to heaven (about which there is considerable ecclesiastical doubt), I hope that I will be furnished…"
"The purpose of keeping any collection of wild animals in confinement should be threefold; first, to conduct as comple…"
"Halfway up the slope, guarded by a group of tall, slim, cypress-trees, nestled a small strawberry-pink villa, like so…"
"Gradually the magic of the island settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen. Each day had a tranquillity, a …"
"I said I liked being half-educated; you were so much more surprised at everything when you were ignorant."
"We all travelled light, taking with us only what we considered to be the bare essentials of life. When we opened our …"
"There would be a dreadful outcry if anyone suggested obliterating, say, the Tower of London, and quite rightly so; ye…"
"Right in the Heart of the African Jungle a small white man lives. Now there is one extraordinary fact about him that …"