David Attenborough Quotes

Before the BBC, I joined the Navy in order to travel.
David Attenborough

Travel, Before, Order

Cameramen are among the most extraordinarily able and competent people I know. They have to have an insight into natural history that gives them a sixth sense of what the creature is going to do, so they can be ready to follow.
David Attenborough

History, Sense, Able

I am an ardent recycler. I would like to think that it works. I don't know whether it does or not.
David Attenborough

Whether, Works, Ardent

I don't approve of sunbathing, and it's bad for you.
David Attenborough

I had a huge advantage when I started 50 years ago - my job was secure. I didn't have to promote myself. These days there's far more pressure to make a mark, so the temptation is to make adventure television or personality shows. I hope the more didactic approach won't be lost.
David Attenborough

Hope, Job, Lost

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

History, Travel, Important

I mean, it is an extraordinary thing that a large proportion of your country and my country, of the citizens, never see a wild creature from dawn 'til dusk, unless it's a pigeon, which isn't really wild, which might come and settle near them.
David Attenborough

Mean, Country, Might

I suffer much less than many of my colleagues. I am perfectly able to go to Australia and film within three hours of arrival.
David Attenborough

Able, Film, Less

I think a major element of jetlag is psychological. Nobody ever tells me what time it is at home.
David Attenborough

Travel, Time, Home

I would be absolutely astounded if population growth and industrialisation and all the stuff we are pumping into the atmosphere hadn't changed the climatic balance. Of course it has. There is no valid argument for denial.
David Attenborough

Balance, Denial, Growth

I'd like to see the giant squid. Nobody has ever seen one. I could tell you people who have spent thousands and thousands of pounds trying to see giant squid. I mean, we know they exist because we have seen dead ones. But I have never seen a living one. Nor has anybody else.
David Attenborough

Mean, Trying, Living

I'm absolutely strict about it. When I land, I put my watch right, and I don't care what I feel like, I will go to bed at half past eleven. If that means going to bed early or late, that's what I live by. As soon as you get there, live by that time.
David Attenborough

Time, Live, Care

I'm against this huge globalisation on the basis of economic advantage.
David Attenborough

Against, Economic, Advantage

I'm not a propagandist, I'm not a polemicist; my primary interest is just looking at and trying to understand how animals work.
David Attenborough

Work, Trying, Understand

I'm not in politics.
David Attenborough

If I were beginning my career today, I don't think I would take the same direction. Television is at a crossroads at the moment. And although I am not up to date technologically, I suspect that somewhere out there people are conveying things about natural history by means other than television, and I think if I were beginning today, I'd be there.
David Attenborough

History, Today, Career

If my grandchildren were to look at me and say, 'You were aware species were disappearing and you did nothing, you said nothing', that I think is culpable. I don't know how much more they expect me to be doing, I'd better ask them.
David Attenborough

Nothing, Said, Expect

In the old days... it was a basic, cardinal fact that producers didn't have opinions. When I was producing natural history programmes, I didn't use them as vehicles for my own opinion. They were factual programmes.
David Attenborough

History, Old, Opinion

It is vital that there is a narrator figure whom people believe. That's why I never do commercials. If I started saying that margarine was the same as motherhood, people would think I was a liar.
David Attenborough

Liar, Saying, Why

It was regarded as a responsibility of the BBC to provide programs which have a broad spectrum of interest, and if there was a hole in that spectrum, then the BBC would fill it.
David Attenborough

Interest, Fill, Hole

It's a moral question about whether we have the right to exterminate species.
David Attenborough

Moral, Question, Whether

It's coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It's not just climate change; it's sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.
David Attenborough

Change, Home, Food

Natural history is not about producing fables.
David Attenborough

History, Natural, Fables

Nature isn't positive in that way. It doesn't aim itself at you. It's not being unkind to you.
David Attenborough

Nature, Positive, Aim

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

Future, Living, Talk

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Biography

Nationality: British

Type: Journalist

Born: May 8, 1926

Links

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Cite this Page: Citation

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