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The truly dominant individual can be recognized by the almost complete absence of such actions. If the ostensibly dominant member of the group does, in fact, perform a large number of small displacement activities, then this means that his official dominance is being threatened in someway by the other individuals present.

— Desmond Morris The Naked Ape (1967)

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More quotes by Desmond Morris

I enjoy laughter and good living and believe life is like a very short visit to a toyshop between birth and death.

It could be said that the advance of civilization has not so much moulded modern sexual behaviour, as that sexual behaviour has moulded the shape of civilization.

The Naked Ape (1967)

The zoo animal in a cage exhibits all these abnormalities that we know so well from our human companions. Clearly, then, the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.

No matter how old we become, we can still call them 'Holy Mother' or 'Father' and put a child-like trust in them (or their agents, who often adopt similar titles for themselves).

At first sight, it is surprising that religion has been so successful, but its extreme potency is simply a measure of the strength of our fundamental biological tendency, inherited directly from our monkey and ape ancestors, to submit ourselves to an all-powerful, dominant member of the group.

The Naked Ape (1967)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Desmond Morris (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.