Margaret Mead Quotes

"Old age is like flying through a storm. Once you're aboard, there's nothing you can do."

"Because of their age long training in human relations for that is what feminine intuition really is women have a special contribution to make any group enterprise"

"If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any golden ghettos, you will gain a sense of continuity and of the possibility for a full life."

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

"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 gift will find a fitting place."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"Fathers are biological necessities, but social accidents."

"People in America, of course, live in all sorts of fashions, because they are foreigners, or unlucky, or depraved, or without ambition; people live like that, but Americans live in white detached houses with green shutters. Rigidly, blindly, the dream takes precedence."

"I had no reason to doubt that brains were suitable for a woman. And as I had my father's kind of mind-which was also his mother's-I learned that the mind is not sex-typed."

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

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