Margaret Mead

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 weve put it in an impossible situation.

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

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

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.

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

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

Having two bathrooms ruined the capacity to co operate.

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

The time has come I think when we must recognize bisexuality as a normal form of human behavior... we shall not really succeed in discarding the straitjacket of our cultural beliefs about sexual choice if we fail to come to terms with the well documented normal human capacity to love members of both sexes.

When a person is born we rejoice, and when they're married we jubilate, but when they die we try to pretend nothing has happened.

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.

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

Having two bathrooms ruined the capacity to co-operate.

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.

The differences between the two sexes is one of the important conditions upon which we have built the many varieties of human culture that give human beings dignity and stature.

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

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

We are at a point in history where a proper attention to space, and especially near space, may be absolutely crucial in bringing the world together.

In Bali life is a rhythmic patterned unreality of pleasant significant movement centered in ones own body to which all emotions long ago withdrew.

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

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

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

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

Dear Math, please grow up and solve your own problems. I'm tired of solving them for you. Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.

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

Fathers are biological necessities, but social accidents.

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

Sooner or later Im going to die but Im not going to retire.

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

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

The notion that we are products of our environment is our greatest sin; we are products of our choices.

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.

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world.

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

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

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

I learned the value of hard work by working hard.

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

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

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.

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

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world indeed its 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.

Never believe that a few caring people cant change the world. For indeed thats all who ever 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.

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

It is easier to change a mans religion than to change his diet.

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.

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

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

As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.

Having someone wonder where you are when you dont come home at night is a very old human need.

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

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.

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

The assumption that men were created equal, with an equal ability to make an effort and win an earthly reward, although denied every day by experience, is maintained every day by our folklore and our daydreams.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Manners, really good ones, make it possible to live with almost anyone, gracefully and pleasantly

Fathers are biological necessities but social accidents.

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

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

All social change comes from the passion of individuals.

We wont have a society if we destroy the environment.