Margaret Mead Quotes

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

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

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

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.

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

I learned the value of hard work by working hard.

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.

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world.

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

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

We — mankind — stand at the center of an evolutionary crisis, with a new evolutionary device — our consciousness of the crisis — as our unique contribution.

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

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.

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

[In Bali] life is a rhythmic, patterned unreality of pleasant, significant movement, centered in one's own body to which all emotions long ago withdrew.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

A city must be a place where groups of women and men are seeking and developing the highest things they know.

The time has come, I think, when we must recognize bisexuality as a normal form of human behavior.

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.

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

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

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

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

Once any group in society stands in a relatively deprived position in relation to other groups, it is genuinely deprived.

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

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

Don't depend on governments or corporations to fix problems. Social revolutions are led by passionate individuals and that's what makes the difference.

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

we came to realize that a civilization which rode roughshod over the way of life of other peoples was incorporating evil in its own way of life.

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

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

What is new is not bisexuality, but rather the widening of our awareness and acceptance of human capacities for sexual love.

There is no more creative force in the world than the menopausal woman with zest.

We will be a better country when each religious group can trust its members to obey the dictates of their own religious faith without assistance from the legal structure of the country.

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

Between friends there is no bribery. ... the relationship of friends is intrinsically fair and equal. Neither feels stronger or more clever or more beautiful than the other.

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

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

To the extent a person makes, invents or thinks something that is new to him, he may be said to have performed a creative act.

My grandmother wanted me to get a good education, so she kept me as far away from schools as possible.

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