Top 298 Quotes & Sayings by Margaret Mead

If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.

We are now at a point where we must educate our children in what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet.

As long as any adult thinks that he, like the parents and teachers of old, can become introspective, invoking his own youth to understand the youth before him, he is lost.

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.

Women want mediocre men, and men are working to be as mediocre as possible.

Nobody has ever before asked the nuclear family to live all by itself in a box the way we do. With no relatives, no support, we've put it in an impossible situation.

Every time we liberate a woman, we liberate a man.

The solution to adult problems tomorrow depends on large measure upon how our children grow up today.

We have nowhere else to go... this is all we have.

A city is a place where there is no need to wait for next week to get the answer to a question, to taste the food of any country, to find new voices to listen to and familiar ones to listen to again.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

I have a respect for manners as such, they are a way of dealing with people you don't agree with or like.

Instead of needing lots of children, we need high-quality children.

Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have.

What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things.

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Sister is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship.

Thanks to television, for the first time the young are seeing history made before it is censored by their elders.

Having two bathrooms ruined the capacity to co-operate.

We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.

It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.

The pains of childbirth were altogether different from the enveloping effects of other kinds of pain. These were pains one could follow with one's mind.

Sooner or later I'm going to die, but I'm not going to retire.

Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive and potentially orderly and constructive.

Our humanity rests upon a series of learned behaviors, woven together into patterns that are infinitely fragile and never directly inherited.

And when our baby stirs and struggles to be born it compels humility: what we began is now its own.

I learned the value of hard work by working hard.

Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess.

I do not believe in using women in combat, because females are too fierce.

I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world.

Prayer does not use up artificial energy, doesn't burn up any fossil fuel, doesn't pollute. Neither does song, neither does love, neither does the dance.

The way to do fieldwork is never to come up for air until it is all over.

It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age.

Fathers are biological necessities, but social accidents.

Man's role is uncertain, undefined, and perhaps unnecessary.

Life in the twentieth century is like a parachute jump: you have to get it right the first time.

For the very first time the young are seeing history being made before it is censored by their elders.

Many societies have educated their male children on the simple device of teaching them not to be women.

Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.

I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.

I was wise enough to never grow up while fooling most people into believing I had.

It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly.

One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.

No country that permits firearms to be widely and randomly distributed among its population - especially firearms that are capable of wounding and killing human beings - can expect to escape violence, and a great deal of violence.

For the human species to evolve, the conversation must deepen.

An ideal culture is one that makes a place for every human gift

We grow up never questioning that which is unquestioned around us.

Everyone needs to have access both to grandparents and grandchildren in order to be a full human being.

Our treatment of both older people and children reflects the value we place on independence and autonomy. We do our best to make our children independent from birth. We leave them all alone in rooms with the lights out and tell them, 'Go to sleep by yourselves.' And the old people we respect most are the ones who will fight for their independence, who would sooner starve to death than ask for help.

No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded.

Never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to change the world.

Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.

We must have...a place where children can have a whole group of adults they can trust.

Where we choose to put our attention changes our brain, which in time can change how we see and interact with the world.

We are living beyond our means. As a people we have developed a life-style that is draining the earth of its priceless and irreplaceable resources without regard for the future of our children and people all around the world.

Injustice experienced in the flesh, in deeply wounded flesh, is the stuff out of which change explodes.

A woman, even a brilliant woman, must have two qualities in order to fulfill her promise: more energy than mere mortals, and the ability to outwit her culture.

...recognize and respect Earth's beautiful systems of balance, between the presence of animals on land, the fish in the sea, birds in the air, mankind, water, air, and land. Most importantly there must always be awareness of the actions by people that can disturb this precious balance.

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.

There is no hierarchy of values by which one culture has the right to insist on all its own values and deny those of another.