Quote

I have spent most of my life studying the lives of other peoples - faraway peoples - so that Americans might better understand themselves.

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
Life
Peoples
Spent
Americans
Study
Understand
Lives
Better
Faraway
Might
Studying

More quotes by Margaret Mead

Image
I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world.
Margaret Mead
Image
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
Image
[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
Image
We end up with the contradictory picture of a society that appears to throw its doors wide open to women, but translates her every step towards success as having been damaging.
Margaret Mead
Image
I was a child that both my parents wanted. I was told from the time I was born that I was totally satisfactory. I had a chance to be what I wanted to be.
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
No one will live all his life in the world into which he was born and no one will die in the world in which he worked in his maturity.
Margaret Mead
Image
I learned the value of hard work by working hard.
Margaret Mead
Image
Sooner or later I'm going to die, but I'm not going to retire.
Margaret Mead
Image
the people of one nation alone cannot save their own children each holds the responsibility for the others' children.
Margaret Mead
Image
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
Image
Children not only have to learn what their parents learned in school, but also have to learn how to learn. This has to be recognized as a new problem which is only partly solved.
Margaret Mead
Image
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
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
WE MUST DEVISE A SYSTEM IN WHICH PEACE IS MORE REWARDING THAN WAR.
Margaret Mead
Image
Cynicism is the other thing that goes with sentimentality.
Margaret Mead
Image
Human beings do not carry civilization in their genes. All that we do carry in our genes are certain capacities- the capacity to learn to walk upright, to use our brains, to speak, to relate to our fellow men, to construct and use tools, to explore the universe, and to express that exploration in religion, in art, in science, in philosophy.
Margaret Mead
Image
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.
Margaret Mead
Image
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.
Margaret Mead
Image
If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.
Margaret Mead