29+ Robert Ardrey Quotes On Freedom, Education And Religion

Robert Ardrey was an American playwright, screenwriter and science writer. He is best known for his plays Thunder Rock and The Dark of the Sun, as well as for his book African Genesis. Ardrey's work explored the nature of human behavior, particularly in regards to aggression and territoriality. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Robert Ardrey on leadership, freedom, education.

Top 10 Robert Ardrey Quotes

1. Do you care about freedom? Dreams may have inspired it, and wishes prompted it, but only war and weapons have made it yours.
2. We are born of risen apes, not fallen angels.
3. What could not be denied was that in vast segments of the animal world natural selection of the most qualified individuals took place not by competition for females but by competition for space.
4. We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments?
5. Man is a fraction of the animal world. Our history is an afterthought, no more, tacked to an infinite calendar. We are not so unique as we should like to believe.
6. Aggressiveness is the principal guarantor of survival.
7. The dog barking at you from behind his master's fence acts for a motive indistinguishable from that of his master when the fence was built.
8. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.
9. While we pursue the unattainable, we make impossible the realizable.
10. Men, unlike mockingbirds, have the capacity for systematic self-delusion. We echo each other with equal precision, equal eloquence, equal assurance.

Robert Ardrey Short Quotes

• What truly leads the evolutionary procession, in other words, is behavior.
• Human war has been the most successful of our cultural traditions.
• Animal language is a contagious expression of mood effecting communication between social partners.
• Sex is a sideshow in the world of the animal, for the dominant color of that world is fear.
• Classic is our daring, classic our cowardice. Classic is our cruelty, classic our charity.
• A human being is a problem in search of a solution.
• For the soundest of evolutionary reasons man appears at his best when times are worst.
• A bird does not fly because it has wings; it has wings because it flies.

Robert Ardrey Famous Quotes And Sayings

Not in innocence, and not in Asia, was mankind born. The home of our fathers was that African highland reaching north from the Cape to the Lakes of the Nile. Here we came about-slowly, ever so slowly-on a sky-swept savannah glowing with menace. — Robert Ardrey

Natural selection deals ruthlessly with any population, bird or beaver, which fails to solve the problems of its environment with all those resources, learned or unlearned, which may be at its disposal. — Robert Ardrey

There is nothing so moving - not even acts of love or hate - as the discovery that one is not alone. — Robert Ardrey

But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses. — Robert Ardrey

Is it possible that the environmental severity of the 1930s induced-particularly in the most aware, alert, and compassionate of [British] men-a morality which makes no sense today? — Robert Ardrey

There is a virtue, I must presume, in shamelessness, since by placing on parade the things one does not know, one discovers that no one else knows either. — Robert Ardrey

If you watch lizards and lions copulating, then you will see that in 200 million years the male has not had a single new idea. — Robert Ardrey

We may agree, for example, that our societies must provide greater security for the individual; yet if all we succeed in producing is a providing increased anonymity and ever increasing boredom, then we should not wonder if ingenious man turns to such amusements as drugs, housebreaking, vandalism, mayhem, riots, or - at the most harmless - strange haircuts, costumes, standards of cleanliness, and sexual experiments. — Robert Ardrey

Far from the truth lay the antique assumption that man had fathered the weapon. The weapon, instead, had fathered man. — Robert Ardrey

The hunter died when he achieved supremacy. Perhaps the death of the hunter will be the long monument to interglacial man. We denied a future to our sucessor beings. — Robert Ardrey

Why is man man? As long as we have had minds to think with, stars to ponder upon, dreams to disturb us, curiosity to inspire us, hours free for meditation, words to place our thoughts in order, the question like a restless ghost has prowled the cellars of our consciousness. — Robert Ardrey

Life Lessons by Robert Ardrey

Robert Ardrey's work emphasizes the importance of understanding human behavior and the power of storytelling. His plays explore the human condition, emphasizing the need to understand our own motivations and the motivations of others. His works also demonstrate the power of empathy and the need to recognize our shared humanity.