Margaret Mead
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.Collection: Religion
Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive and potentially orderly and constructive.Collection: Nature
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.Collection: Environmental
Women want mediocre men, and men are working to be as mediocre as possible.Collection: Women
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.Collection: Science
Fathers are biological necessities, but social accidents.Collection: Dad
Thanks to television, for the first time the young are seeing history made before it is censored by their elders.Collection: Thankful
I learned the value of hard work by working hard.Collection: Work
One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.Collection: Home
Sister is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship.Collection: Relationship
I have a respect for manners as such, they are a way of dealing with people you don't agree with or like.Collection: Respect
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.Collection: Food
We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.Collection: Society
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.Collection: Family
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.Collection: Learning
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.Collection: Change
Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.Collection: Funny
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.Collection: Fear
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.Collection: Age
For the very first time the young are seeing history being made before it is censored by their elders.Collection: History
I do not believe in using women in combat, because females are too fierce.Collection: Women
Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have.Collection: Change
What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things.
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.
I was wise enough to never grow up while fooling most people into believing I had.
It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.
Sooner or later I'm going to die, but I'm not going to retire.
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.
The way to do fieldwork is never to come up for air until it is all over.
Life in the twentieth century is like a parachute jump: you have to get it right the first time.
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 was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world.
Having two bathrooms ruined the capacity to co-operate.
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.
I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.
Our humanity rests upon a series of learned behaviors, woven together into patterns that are infinitely fragile and never directly inherited.
Every time we liberate a woman, we liberate a man.
Man's role is uncertain, undefined, and perhaps unnecessary.
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.
Instead of needing lots of children, we need high-quality children.
And when our baby stirs and struggles to be born it compels humility: what we began is now its own.
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.Collection: Education
You can no longer save your family, tribe or nation. You can only save the whole world.Collection: 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.Collection: Freedom
For the human species to evolve, the conversation must deepen.Collection: Conversation
Never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to change the world.Collection: Groups
An ideal culture is one that makes a place for every human giftCollection: Culture
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.Collection: Civilization