Margaret Mead Quotes

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

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

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

No matter how many communes anybody invents the family always creeps back.

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

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

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

There is no greater insight into the future than recognizing...when we save our children, we save ourselves

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.

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

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

I learned the value of hard work by working hard.

Each suburban housewife spends her time presiding over a power plant sufficient to have staffed the palace of a Roman emperor with a hundred slaves.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night is a very old human need.

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

It is easier to change a man's religion than to change his diet.

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

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

Fathers are biological necessities, but social accidents.

Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.

One of the most dangerous things that can happen to a child is to kill or torture an animal an get away with it.

You just have to learn not to care about the dust mites under the beds.

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.

When I stand on a street in a Canadian city and look across the street it couldn't be anywhere but Canada but how can I prove it?

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

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.

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

Jealousy is not a barometer by which the depth of love can be read. It merely records the degree of the lover's insecurity.

In almost any society I think the quality of the non-conformists is like to be just as good as and no better than that of the conformists.

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