Top 90 David Attenborough Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “What humans do over the next 50 years will determine the fate of all life on the planet.”

— David Attenborough

Featured in: Changing the World Quotes, Environment Quotes, Future Quotes, Nature Quotes, Survival Quotes

2. “It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.”

— David Attenborough

Featured in: Aesthetic Quotes, Environment Quotes, Nature Quotes

3. “No one will protect what they don’t care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced.”

— David Attenborough

4. “Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment.”

— David Attenborough

Featured in: Environment Quotes

5. “The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.”

— David Attenborough

Featured in: Impact Quotes, Environment Quotes, Nature Quotes, Quotes About Water

6. “How could I look my grandchildren in the eye and say I knew what was happening to the world and did nothing.”

— David Attenborough

7. “The World is full of wonders, but they become more Wonderful, not less Wonderful when Science looks at them.”

— David Attenborough

8. “Bringing nature into the classroom can kindle a fascination and passion for the diversity of life on earth and can motivate a sense of responsibility to safeguard it.”

— David Attenborough

9. “Anyone who believes in indefinite growth on a physically finite planet is either mad or an economist.”

— David Attenborough

10. “Reptiles and amphibians are sometimes thought of as primitive, dull and dimwitted. In fact, of course, they can be lethally fast, spectacularly beautiful, surprisingly affectionate and very sophisticated.”

— David Attenborough

11. “We can now destroy or we can cherish-the choice is ours.”

— David Attenborough

12. “I’m no longer sceptical. I no longer have any doubt at all. I think climate change is the major challenge facing the world.”

— David Attenborough

13. “Nothing in the natural world makes sense – except when seen in the light of evolution.”

— David Attenborough

14. “If we and the rest of the back-boned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if the invertebrates were to disappear, the world’s ecosystems would collapse.”

— David Attenborough

15. “Many individuals are doing what they can. But real success can only come if there is a change in our societies and in our economics and in our politics.”

— David Attenborough

16. “I like animals. I like natural history. The travel bit is not the important bit. The travel bit is what you have to do in order to go and look at animals.”

— David Attenborough

17. “Dealing with global warming doesn’t mean we have all got to suddenly stop breathing. Dealing with global warming means that we have to stop waste, and if you travel for no reason whatsoever, that is a waste.”

— David Attenborough

18. “We have a finite environment – the planet. Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth in a finite environment is either a madman or an economist.”

— David Attenborough

19. “Crying wolf is a real danger.”

— David Attenborough

20. “That people will object very much to seeing a predator killing its prey, and yet, in the news, will accept showing shots of people shooting one another.”

— David Attenborough

21. “Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a co-ordinated view about the planet, it’s going to get worse and worse.”

— David Attenborough

22. “Can a growing human population still leave space for wildlife?”

— David Attenborough

23. “I’m not over-fond of animals. I am merely astounded by them.”

— David Attenborough

24. “One in eight plant species face extinction.”

— David Attenborough

25. “Young people: They care. They know that this is the world that they’re going to grow up in, that they’re going to spend the rest of their lives in. But, I think it’s more idealistic than that. They actually believe that humanity, human species, has no right to destroy and despoil regardless.”

— David Attenborough

26. “Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird?”

— David Attenborough

27. “All life is related. And it enables us to construct with confidence the complex tree that represents the history of life.”

— David Attenborough

28. “We are at a unique stage in our history. Never before have we had such an awareness of what we are doing to the planet, and never before have we had the power to do something about that. Surely we all have a responsibility to care for our Blue Planet. The future of humanity and indeed, all life on earth, now depends on us.”

— David Attenborough

29. “To restore stability to our planet, therefore, we must restore its biodiversity, the very thing we have removed. It is the only way out of this crisis that we ourselves have created. We must rewild the world!”

— David Attenborough

30. “The human population can no longer be allowed to grow in the same old uncontrollable way. If we do not take charge of our population size, then nature will do it for us and it is the poor people of the world who will suffer most.”

— David Attenborough

31. “It is curiosity, quite right-a divine curiosity. A characteristic of the gods is curiosity.”

— David Attenborough

32. “We can now manipulate images to such an extrodinary extent that there’s no lie you cannot tell.”

— David Attenborough

33. “We live our comfortable lives in the shadow of a disaster of our own making. That disaster is being brought about by the very things that allow us to live our comfortable lives.”

— David Attenborough

34. “Do we really require so many gardening programmes, makeover programmes or celebrity chefs?”

— David Attenborough

35. “I’m not an animal lover if that means you think things are nice if you can pat them, but I am intoxicated by animals.”

— David Attenborough

36. “We often talk of saving the planet, but the truth is that we must do these things to save ourselves. With or without us, the wild will return.”

— David Attenborough

37. “I have no doubt that the fundamental problem the planet faces is the enormous increase in the human population.”

— David Attenborough

38. “All we require is the will. The next few decades represent a final opportunity to build a stable home for ourselves and restore the rich, healthy and wonderful world that we inherited from our distant ancestors. Our future on the planet, the only place as far as we know where life of any kind exists, is at stake.”

— David Attenborough

39. “The correct scientific response to something that is not understood must always be to look harder for the explanation, not give up and assume a supernatural cause.”

— David Attenborough

40. “The savage, rocky shores of Christmas Island, 200 miles south of Java, in the Indian Ocean. It’s November, the moon is in its third quarter, and the sun is just setting. In a few hours from now, on this very shore, a thousand million lives will be launched.”

— David Attenborough

41. “Its about cherishing the woodland at the bottom of your garden or the stream that runs through it. It affects every aspect of life.”

— David Attenborough

42. “The fundamental issue is the moral issue.”

— David Attenborough

43. “I just wish the world was twice as big and half of it was still unexplored.”

— David Attenborough

44. “In the Baboon community, it is not how strong you are that is important, but who you know that counts.”

— David Attenborough

Featured in: Strong Quotes

45. “Life is not all high emotion. Some of the most interesting things are when its not highly emotional: little details of relationships and body language.”

— David Attenborough

46. “I know of no pleasure deeper than that which comes from contemplating the natural world and trying to understand it.”

— David Attenborough

47. “I find it far more awesome, wonderful, that creation; our appearance in the world; should be the culmination, or at least one of the latest products of 3,000 Million years of organic evolution, than a kind of country trick, taking a rib out of a man’s side in a trance.”

— David Attenborough

48. “People talk about doom-laden scenarios happening in the future: they are happening in Africa now. You can see it perfectly clearly. Periodic famines are due to too many people living on land that can’t sustain them.”

— David Attenborough

49. “Children start off reading in books about lions and giraffes and so on, but they also-if theyre lucky enough and have reasonable privileges of any human being-are able to go into a garden and turn over stone and see a worm and see a slug and see an ant.”

— David Attenborough

Featured in: Reading Quotes

50. “Birds are the most accomplished aeronauts the world has ever seen. They fly high and low, at great speed, and very slowly. And always with extraordinary precision and control.”

— David Attenborough