Quotes by Margaret Mead

About Margaret Mead:

Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist who featured frequently as an author and speaker in the mass media during the 1960s and 1970s. She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard College in New York City and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

As long as any adult thinks that he, like the parents and teachers of old, can become introspective, invoking his own youth to understand the youth before him, he is lost.

Margaret Mead

Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.

Margaret Mead

It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age.

Margaret Mead

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

We are now at a point where we must educate our children in what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet.

Margaret Mead

Sooner or later I'm going to die, but I'm not going to retire.

Margaret Mead

What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things.

Margaret Mead

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

The solution to adult problems tomorrow depends on large measure upon how our children grow up today.

Margaret Mead

And when our baby stirs and struggles to be born it compels humility: what we began is now its own.

Margaret Mead

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

Margaret Mead

Instead of needing lots of children, we need high-quality children.

Margaret Mead

The way to do fieldwork is never to come up for air until it is all over.

Margaret Mead

Having two bathrooms ruined the capacity to co-operate.

Margaret Mead

Man's role is uncertain, undefined, and perhaps unnecessary.

Margaret Mead

I was wise enough to never grow up while fooling most people into believing I had.

Margaret Mead

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

We have nowhere else to go... this is all we have.

Margaret Mead

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

It is easier to change a man's religion than to change his diet.

Margaret Mead

Author Bio

  • NameMargaret Mead
  • DescriptionAmerican anthropologist
  • BornDecember 16, 1901
  • DiedNovember 15, 1978
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionCurator; Anthropologist
  • AwardsPresidential Medal Of Freedom; Kalinga Prize; William Procter Prize For Scientific Achievement; National Women's Hall Of Fame