The chimpanzee study was – well, it’s still going on, and I think it’s taught us perhaps more than anything else to be a little humble; that we are, indeed, unique primates, we humans, but we’re simply not as different from the rest of the animal kingdom as we used to think.

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

There’s a belief that you’re supposed to be poor, and suffering, and show your humility. I just don’t see the Bible that way. I see that God came and Jesus died so that we might live an abundant life and be a blessing to others.

I never get too high on my stardom or what I can do.

When you meet chimps you meet individual personalities. When a baby chimp looks at you it’s just like a human baby. We have a responsibility to them.

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity.

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

Humble people ask for help.

I never say I am a guru.

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life… I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond.

Whenever I’m around some who is modest, I think, ‚Run like hell and all of fire.‘ You don’t want modesty, you want humility.

I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.

I don’t make people bend over backwards, and I don’t like that in people. I am definitely no diva.

I don’t pretend to understand the Universe – it’s a great deal bigger than I am.

If one has the answers to all the questions – that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble.

On the day-long follows that I used to do with mothers and their offspring – these chimp families that I knew so well – there was hardly a day when I didn’t learn something new about them.

People make a big fuss over you when you’re President. But I’m very serious about doing everything I can to make sure that it doesn’t go to my head.

The day you stop doing the small things is the day you think you’re above everybody else.

I have never regarded myself as a hero, but Tenzing undoubtedly was.

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

I’m no leader; I’m a little humble follower.

Humanity at the centre of the primates, Homo sapiens, in humanity, is the end-product of a gradual work of creation, the successive sketches for which still surround us on every side.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

Everybody should have a fair deal; everybody should have the chance to life in this world. If we were evolved as human beings, we would hopefully be able to alleviate suffering in the world.

I actually don’t want a throne at all, because I don’t view myself as a queen; I view myself as one of my fans.

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

Let us be absolutely clear about one thing: we must not confuse humility with false modesty or servility.

It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man.

I’m not in it for fame. I’ve been famous in the streets already.

Be smarter than other people, just don’t tell them so.

The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.

To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

Anyone who wants to be pope doesn’t care much for themselves, God doesn’t bless them. I didn’t want to be pope.

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

I mean, when you grow up in the inner city and you grow up in a single-parent household, that’s – those are humbling times, you know?

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

Chimps are very quick to have a sudden fight or aggressive episode, but they’re equally as good at reconciliation.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

Pride is an independent, me-oriented spirit. It makes people arrogant, rude and hard to get along with. When our heart is prideful, we don’t give God the credit and we mistreat people, looking down on them and thinking we deserve what we have.

I want to be the greatest actor that ever lived, frankly. I’d love that. But I don’t need to be. I just want to be here. That’s it.

Don’t let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn’t go with it.

I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

We do not pray to God to instruct Him as to what He should do; neither for a moment must we presume to dictate the method of the divine working.

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.

I’m a pretty good winner. I’m a terrible loser. And I rub it in pretty good when I win.

I’m sorry my existence is not very noble or sublime.

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge.