David Attenborough
David Attenborough
Sir David Frederick Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE FRS FLS FZS FSA is an English broadcaster and naturalist...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionTV Show Host
Date of Birth8 May 1926
CityIsleworth, England
taken years sea
Birds were flying from continent to continent long before we were. They reached the coldest place on Earth, Antarctica, long before we did. They can survive in the hottest of deserts. Some can remain on the wing for years at a time. They can girdle the globe. Now, we have taken over the earth and the sea and the sky, but with skill and care and knowledge, we can ensure that there is still a place on Earth for birds in all their beauty and variety - if we want to... And surely, we should.
mean thinking careers
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.
running sitting half
I don't like rats, but there's not much else I don't like. The problem with rats is they have no fear of human beings, they're loaded with foul diseases, they would run the place given half the chance, and I've had them leap out of a lavatory while I've been sitting on it.
way aim unkind
Nature isn't positive in that way. It doesn't aim itself at you. It's not being unkind to you.
world way evolution
As far as I'm concerned, if there is a supreme being then He chose organic evolution as a way of bringing into existence the natural world... which doesn't seem to me to be necessarily blasphemous at all.
lying manipulate
We can now manipulate images to such an extrodinary extent that there's no lie you cannot tell.
running clever numbers
Human beings, because we're so clever, have removed every single one of those population limiting factors... So nothing controls our increase in numbers except our own wish. Since I first started making television programs, the population of the world has increased three times. That's an extraordinary notion. Can it increase four times? Can it increase five times? The Earth is a finite size. So a point will eventually come when we run out of food, when we run out of space and when we will have destroyed most of the natural world. So ought we to do something about it before that happens?
mean cry inevitable
You can cry about death and very properly so, your own as well as anybody else's. But it's inevitable, so you'd better grapple with it and cope and be aware that not only is it inevitable, but it has always been inevitable, if you see what I mean.
views humanity planets
Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a co-ordinated view about the planet, it's going to get worse and worse.
silly animal python
I've been bitten by a python. Not a very big one. I was being silly, saying: 'Oh, it's not poisonous' Then, wallop! But you have fear around animals.
animal knowing trying
The process of making natural history films is to try to prevent the animal knowing you are there, so you get glimpses of a non-human world, and that is a transporting thing.
strong community important
In the Baboon community, it is not how strong you are that is important, but who you know that counts
people needs ponzi-scheme
The notion of ever more old people needing ever more young people, who in turn will grow old and need ever more young people and so on, ad infinitum, is an obvious ecological Ponzi scheme.
animal keys world
Warm-bloodedness is one of the key factors that have enabled mammals to conquer the Earth, and to develop the most complex bodies in the animal kingdom. In this series, we will travel the world to discover just how varied and how astonishing mammals are.