Dian Fossey Quotes

#1. Active conservation [of gorillas] involves simply going out into the forest, on foot, day after day after day, attempting to capture poachers, killing-regretfully-poacher dogs, which spread rabies within the park, and cutting down traps.

Dian Fossey

#2. I had a wonderful contact, especially with Uncle Bert who was an angel and led the whole group over to my side of a steep ravine I could not cross to get over to them.

Dian Fossey

#3. I have no friends.

Dian Fossey

#4. It was their individuality combined with the shyness of their behavior that remained the most captivating impression of this first encounter with the greatest of the great apes.

Dian Fossey

#5. I feel more comfortable with gorillas than people. I can anticipate what a gorilla's going to do, and they're purely motivated.

Dian Fossey

#6. The man who kills the animals today is the man who kills the people who get in his way tomorrow

Dian Fossey

#7. When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.

Dian Fossey

#8. The extraordinary gentleness of the adult male with his young dispels all the King Kong mythology.

Dian Fossey

#9. I had this great urge ... I had it the day I was born. Some may call it destiny. My parents and friends called it dismaying.

Dian Fossey

#10. [About gorillas] You take these fine, regal animals. How many (human) fathers have the same sense of paternity? How many human mothers are more caring? The family structure is unbelievably strong.

Dian Fossey

#11. Gorillas are almost altruistic in nature. There's very little if any 'me-itis.' When I get back to civilization, I'm always appalled by 'me, me, me.'

Dian Fossey

#12. It is true that there comes a time when I do literally dream about McDonald's. I dream of supermarkets and drug stores, potato chips and the Sunday morning paper.

Dian Fossey

#13. [My] excursions provided a unique opportunity for observing [the gorillas' behavior] in their natural habitat ... Then, all too soon, the infants were demanded for their trip to the zoo ... [H]appily the babies did not know they would never see their mountain home again

Dian Fossey

#14. Gorillas are the largest of the great apes. A mature male may be six feet tall and weigh 400 pounds or more; his enormous arms can span eight feet.

Dian Fossey

#15. The more you learn about the dignity of the gorilla, the more you want to avoid people.

Dian Fossey

#16. One of the basic steps in saving a threatened species is to learn more about it: its diet, its mating and reproductive processes, its range patterns, its social behavior.

Dian Fossey