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

Margaret Mead

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Margaret Mead
Age: 76 †
Born: 1901
Born: December 16
Died: 1978
Died: November 15
Anthropologist
Cultural Anthropologist
Curator
Film Director
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Never
Directly
Patterns
Series
Behaviors
Behavior
Inherited
Learned
Rests
Humanity
Woven
Upon
Infinitely
Together
Fragile

More quotes by Margaret Mead

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Man's role is uncertain, undefined, and perhaps unnecessary.
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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.
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The contempt for law and the contempt for the human consequences of lawbreaking go from the bottom to the top of American society.
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Warfare ... is just an invention, older and more widespread than the jury system, but none the less an invention.
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I have spent most of my life studying the lives of other peoples - faraway peoples - so that Americans might better understand themselves.
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In contrast to our own social environment which brings out different aspects of human nature and often demonstrated that behavior which occurs almost invariably in individuals within our society is nevertheless due not to original nature but to social environment and a homogeneous and simple development of the individual may be studied.
Margaret Mead
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Maleness in America is not absolutely defined it has to be kept and re-earned every day, and one essential element in the definition is beating women in every game that both sexes play.
Margaret Mead
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If we are to give our utmost effort and skill and enthusiasm, we must believe in ourselves, which means believing in our past and in our future, in our parents and in our children, in that particular blend of moral purpose and practical inventiveness which is the American character.
Margaret Mead
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In each age there is a series of pressing questions which must be asked and answered. On the correctness of the questions depends the survival of those who ask on the quality of the answers depends the quality of the life those survivors will lead.
Margaret Mead
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today's children are the first generation to grow up in a world that has the power to destroy itself.
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Young people are moving away from feeling guilty about sleeping with somebody to feeling guilty if they are *not* sleeping with someone.
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There is no greater power in the world than the zest of a postmenopausal woman.
Margaret Mead
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Envy of the male role can come as much from an undervaluation of the role of wife and mother as from an overvaluation of the public aspects of achievement that have been reserved for men.
Margaret Mead
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Motherhood is a biological fact, while fatherhood is a social invention.
Margaret Mead
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Instead of needing lots of children, we need high-quality children.
Margaret Mead
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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.
Margaret Mead
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The liberals have not softened their view of actuality to make themselves live closer to the dream, but instead sharpen their perceptions and fight to make the dream actuality.
Margaret Mead
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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.
Margaret Mead
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I don't consider my marriages as failures! It's idiotic to assume that because a marriage ends, it's failed.
Margaret Mead
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No matter how free divorce, how frequently marriages break up, in most societies there is the assumption of permanent mating, of the idea that the marriage should last as long as both live. . . . No known society has ever invented a form of marriage strong enough to stick that did not contain the 'till death us do part' assumption.
Margaret Mead