Quote

Because our civilization is woven of so many diverse strands, the ideas which any one group accepts will be found to contain numerous contradictions.

Margaret Mead

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Margaret Mead
Age: 76 †
Born: 1901
Born: December 16
Died: 1978
Died: November 15
Anthropologist
Cultural Anthropologist
Curator
Film Director
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Found
Woven
Ideas
Contain
Many
Diverse
Contradiction
Group
Strands
Civilization
Contradictions
Groups
Accepts
Accepting
Numerous

More quotes by Margaret Mead

Image
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
Image
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
Image
Everyone needs to have access both to grandparents and grandchildren in order to be a full human being.
Margaret Mead
Image
Throughout history, females have picked providers for males. Males pick anything.
Margaret Mead
Image
Samoa culture demonstrates how much the tragic or the easy solution of the Oedipus situation depends upon the inter-relationship between parents and children, and is not created out of whole cloth by the young child's biological impulses.
Margaret Mead
Image
The negative cautions of science are never popular.
Margaret Mead
Image
The anonymity of the city is one of its strengths as well as - carried too far - one of its weaknesses.
Margaret Mead
Image
Many societies have educated their male children on the simple device of teaching them not to be women.
Margaret Mead
Image
Warfare ... is just an invention, older and more widespread than the jury system, but none the less an invention.
Margaret Mead
Image
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 it in an impossible situation.
Margaret Mead
Image
The assumption that men and woman are essentially alike in all respects, or even in the most important ones, is a damaging one, as damaging as the assumption that they are different in ways in which they aren't different, perhaps more so.
Margaret Mead
Image
I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.
Margaret Mead
Image
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
Image
American society is very like a fish society. . . . Among certain species of fish, the only thing which determines order of dominance is length of time in the fishbowl. The oldest resident picks on the newest resident, and if the newest resident is removed to a new bowl, he, as oldest resident, will pick on the newcomers.
Margaret Mead
Image
There is no evidence that suggests women are naturally better at caring for children... with the fact of child-bearing out of the centre of attention, there is even more reason for treating girls first as human beings, then as women.
Margaret Mead
Image
We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.
Margaret Mead
Image
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
Image
Human nature is almost unbelievably malleable, responding accurately and contrastingly to contrasting cultural conditions.
Margaret Mead
Image
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
Image
Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive and potentially orderly and constructive.
Margaret Mead