Looking for the best and inspirational Margaret Mead quotes?
Margaret Mead was an anthropologist who published 26 books and over 500 articles.
Margaret Mead was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 16, 1901, and died November 15, 1978. She graduated from Swarthmore College in 1922 and went on to earn her doctorate from Columbia University in 1925.
She is known for her theory of cultural relativism which states that the child learns the culture’s attitudes and behavior as one of the basic building blocks of personality development.
We’ve compiled the most empowering quotes of her. These words will change your outlook on life and inspire you to start pursuing your passions wholeheartedly.
50 Greatest Margaret Mead Quotes
“Life in the twentieth century is like a parachute jump: you have to get it right the first time.”
“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 in an impossible situation.”
“To demand that another love what one loves is tyranny enough, but to demand that another hate what one hates, is even worse.”
“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.”
“We won’t have a society if we destroy the environment.”
“Never ever depend on governments or institutions to solve any major problems. All social change comes from the passion of individuals.”
“What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things.”
“Our first and most pressing problem is how to do away with warfare as a method of solving conflicts between national groups within a society who have different views about how the society is to run.”
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
“You know my fury about people is based precisely on the fact that I consider them to be responsible, moral creatures who so often do not act that way.”
“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.”
“Sooner or later I’m going to die, but I’m not going to retire.”
“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.”
“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”
“There is no reason to think a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens cannot change the world; Indeed, that’s the only thing that ever has.”
“You know you love someone when you cannot put into words how they make you feel.”
“One of the most dangerous things that can happen to a child is to kill or torture an animal and get away with it.”
“I do not believe in using women in combat, because females are too fierce.”
“Young people are moving away from feeling guilty about sleeping with somebody to feeling guilty if they are *not* sleeping with someone.”
“Instead of needing lots of children, we need high-quality children.”
“Having someone wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night is a very old human need.”
“There is no greater insight into the future than recognizing…when we save our children, we save ourselves”
“For the human species to evolve, the conversation must deepen.”
“I learned the value of hard work by working hard.”
“We are continually faced with great opportunities which are brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems.”
“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.”
“One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night.”
“The solution to adult problems tomorrow depends on large measure upon how our children grow up today.”
“The notion that we are products of our environment is our greatest sin; we are products of our choices.”
“I measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her fellow human beings.”
“The negative cautions of science are never popular. If the experimentalist would not commit himself, the social philosopher, the preacher, and the pedagogue tried the harder to give a short-cut answer.”
“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.”
“Women have an important contribution to make.”
“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.”
“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 is easier to change a man’s religion than to change his diet.”
“Every time we liberate a woman, we liberate a man.”
“Even though the ship may go down, the journey goes on.”
“Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive and potentially orderly and constructive.”
“A small group of thoughtful people could change the 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.”
“Laughter is man’s most distinctive emotional expression.”
“What I am demanding of other people is what I am demanding of myself.”
“I was wise enough never to grow up, while fooling people into believing I had.”
“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”
“Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive and potentially orderly and constructive“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.”
“It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.”
“We have nowhere else to go… this is all we have.”
