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Margaret Mead

Margaret Mead Quotes

Cultural Anthropologist

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Famous Margaret Mead Quotes

“where families suffer from disasters that are preventable, this is a measure of a whole nation's neglect. A society imperils its own future when, out of negligence or contempt, it overlooks the need of children to be reared in a family ... or when, in the midst of plenty, some families cannot give their children adequate food and shelter, safe activity and rest, and an opportunity to grow into full adulthood as people who can care for and cherish other human beings like themselves.”

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Author:Margaret Mead
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“Those social behaviors which automatically preclude the building of a democratic world must go - every social limitation of human beings in terms of heredity, whether it be of race, or sex, or class. Every social institution which teaches human beings to cringe to those above and step on those below must be replaced by institutions which teach people to look each other straight in the face.”

PeopleWorldHumansLooksFacesSocialSexTermHuman BeingsRaceStepsClassTeachBuildingBehaviorInstitutionsDemocraticEqualityLimitationReplacedCringeHereditySocial InstitutionsSocial Behavior
Book:And Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America
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“Even very recently, the elders could say: 'You know, I have been young and you never have been old.' But today's young people can reply: 'You never have been young in the world I am young in, and you never can be.' ... the older generation will never see repeated in the lives of young people their own unprecedented experience of sequentially emerging change. This break between generations is wholly new: it is planetary and universal.”

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Author:Margaret Mead
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“Everybody's suffering is mine but not everybody's murdering ... I do not distinguish for one moment whether my child is in danger or a child in central Asia. But I will not accept responsibility for what other people do because I happen to belong to that nation or that race or that religion. I do not believe in guilt by association.”

PeopleBelieveChildrenMomentsHappensSufferingNationsRaceResponsibilityAcceptingDangerMinesGuiltMy ChildrenAssociationAsiaCentral Asia
Author:Margaret Mead
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“Our first and most pressing problem is how to do away with warfare as a method of solving conflicts between national groups or between groups within a society who have different views about how the society is to be run. If you look back, you will see that warfare was an invention, just as ways of handling government or taxes are inventions. You will see, too, that once people use an invention they go on using it until they find another which they think is superior.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWayFirstsLooksDifferentWarUseProblemGovernmentRunningViewsGroupsGoes OnConflictTaxesMethodInventionSuperiorsWarfareDifferent Views
Book:PEOPLE AND PLACES
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“I used to say to my classes that the ways to get insight are: to study infants; to study animals; to study primitive people; to be psychoanalyzed; to have a religious conversion and get over it; to have a psychotic episode and get over it; or to have a love affair with an old Russian. And I stopped saying that when a little dancer in the front row put up her hand and said, 'Does he have to be old?”

PeopleWayLittlesDoeSaidHandsUsedReligiousAnimalClassStudyFrontsAffairInsightConversionDancerOver ItEpisodesPrimitiveGet OverInfantLove AffairAnthropologyPsychotic
Author:Margaret Mead
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“Ninety-nine percent of the time humans have lived on this planet we've lived in tribes, groups of 12 to 36 people. Only during times of war, or what we have now, which is the psychological equivalent of war, does the nuclear family prevail, because it's the most mobile unit that can ensure the survival of the species. But for the full flowering of the human spirit we need groups, tribes.”

PeopleNeedsHumansDoeWarSpiritChangeGroupsPlanetsSurvivalPercentSpeciesNuclearNinePsychologicalCollaborationUnitsTribesSocial ChangeHuman SpiritNinetyMobileFloweringNinety NineNuclear Families
Author:Margaret Mead
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“Earth Day is the first holy day which transcends all national borders, yet preserves all geographical integrities, spans mountains and oceans and time belts, and yet brings people all over the world into one resonating accord, is devoted to the preservation of the harmony in nature and yet draws upon the triumphs of technology, the measurement of time, and instantaneous communication through space.”

PeopleWorldFirstsEarthSpaceTechnologyCommunicationIntegrityHolyMountainOceanDrawsHarmonyTriumphPreservesBordersDevotedPreservationBeltsAccordMeasurementEarth DayInstantaneousResonatingHoly DaysNational Borders
Author:Margaret Mead
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“Many people are shrinking from the future and from participation in the movement toward a new, expanded reality. And, like homesick travelers abroad, they are focusing their anxieties on home. The reasons are not far to seek. We are at a turning point in human history. . . . We could turn our attention to the problems that going to the Moon certainly will not solve ... But I think this would be fatal to our future. . . . A society that no longer moves forward does not merely stagnate; it begins to die.”

PeopleThinkingLifeInspirationalHumansDoeReasonProblemHomeRealityWould BeMovingDiesTurnsAttentionMovementFutureMoonAnxietySolveMoving ForwardOur FutureTravelerParticipationPredictionsHuman HistoryTurning PointsShrinkingHomesick
Author:Margaret Mead
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“The capacity for friendship usually goes with highly developed civilizations. The ability to cultivate people differs by culture and class; but on the whole, educated people have more ways to make friends... . In England, for instance, you find everyone in your class has read the same books. Here, people grope for something in common-like a newly engaged girl who came to me and said, "It's absolutely wonderful! His uncle and my cousin were on the same football team.”

PeopleWaySaidBookWholeCultureGirlFriendshipAbilityCommonClassWonderfulTeamFootballCivilizationCapacityEnglandEducatedInstanceEngagedUnclesCousinFootball TeamMy Cousin
Author:Margaret Mead
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“Each home has been reduced to the bare essentials -- to barer essentials than most primitive people would consider possible. Only one woman's hands to feed the baby, answer the telephone, turn off the gas under the pot that is boiling over, soothe the older child who has broken a toy, and open both doors at once. She is a nutritionist, a child psychologist, an engineer, a production manager, an expert buyer, all in one. Her husband sees her as free to plan her own time, and envies her; she sees him as having regular hours and envies him.”

PeopleChildrenHas BeensHomeHandsTurnsHoursAnswersPlansDoorsBrokenBabyHusbandEssentialsProductionsEnvyManagersExpertsGasPotToysEngineersPrimitiveTelephonesPsychologistOne WomanHouseworkTurn OffBuyersBoilingNutritionistBoiling Over
Book:Male and female: a study of the sexes in a changing world
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“Our treatment of both older people and children reflects the value we place on independence and autonomy. We do our best to make our children independent from birth. We leave them all alone in rooms with the lights out and tell them, 'Go to sleep by yourselves.' And the old people we respect most are the ones who will fight for their independence, who would sooner starve to death than ask for help.”

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Author:Margaret Mead
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