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War is only an invention, not a biological necessity.

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
Invention
War
Biological
Necessity

More quotes by Margaret Mead

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I approached the idea of college with the expectation of taking part in an intellectual feast. ... In college, in some way that I devoutly believed in but could not explain, I expected to become a person.
Margaret Mead
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If one cannot state a matter clearly enough so that even an intelligent twelve-year-old can understand it, one should remain within the cloistered walls of the university and laboratory until one gets a better grasp of one's subject matter.
Margaret Mead
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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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[In Bali] life is a rhythmic, patterned unreality of pleasant, significant movement, centered in one's own body to which all emotions long ago withdrew.
Margaret Mead
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It was not until we saw the picture of the earth, from the moon, that we realized how small and how helpless this planet is - something that we must hold in our arms and care for.
Margaret Mead
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[Among the Arapeh... both father and mother are held responsible for child care by the entire community...] If one comments upon a middle-aged man as good-looking, the people answer: 'Good-looking? Ye-e-e-s? But you should have seen him before he bore all those children'.
Margaret Mead
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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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Somehow, we have to get older people back close to growing children if we are to restore a sense of community, acquire knowledge of the past, and provide a sense of the future.
Margaret Mead
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It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.
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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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.
Margaret Mead
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We make our own criminals, and their crimes are congruent with the national culture we all share. It has been said that a people get the kind of political leadership they deserve. I think they also get the kinds of crime and criminals they themselves bring into being.
Margaret Mead
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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.
Margaret Mead
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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.
Margaret Mead
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You can never have a relationship with someone whose smell you don't like.
Margaret Mead
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We may say that many, if not all, of the personality traits which we have called masculine or feminine are as lightly linked to sex as are the clothing, the manners, and the form of headdress that a society at a given period assigns to either sex.
Margaret Mead
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Interest and proficiency in almost any one activity-swimming, boating, fishing, skiing, skating-breed interest in many more. Once someone discovers the delight of mastering one skill, however slightly, he is likely to try out not just one more, but a whole ensemble.
Margaret Mead
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Injustice experienced in the flesh, in deeply wounded flesh, is the stuff out of which change explodes.
Margaret Mead
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We are living beyond our means. As a people we have developed a life-style that is draining the earth of its priceless and irreplaceable resources without regard for the future of our children and people all around the world.
Margaret Mead
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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.
Margaret Mead