353 Quotes by Margaret Mead

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

We women are doing pretty well. We're almost back to where we were in the twenties. (1976

I have a respect for manners as such, they are a way of dealing with people you don't agree with or like.

The suffering of either sex - of the male who is unable, because of the way in which he was reared, to take the strong initiating or patriarchal role that is still demanded of him, or of the female who has been given too much freedom of movement as a child to stay placidly within the house as an adult - this suffering, this discrepancy, this sense of failure in an enjoined role, is the point of leverage for social change.

The first step in the direction of a world rule of law is the recognition that peace no longer is an unobtainable ideal but a necessary condition of continued human existence. But to take even this step we must return to a calm and responsible frame of mind in which we can face the long patient tasks ahead.

Life in the twentieth century is like a parachute jump: you have to get it right the first time.

[Mead saw at least two major problems in dating. First, it encourages men and women to define heterosexual relationships as situational, rather than ongoing] You "have a date," you "go out with a date," you "groan because there isn't a decent date in town." A situation defined as containing a girl or boy of the right social background, the right degree of popularity, a little higher than your own

Be who you really are, do what you want to do, in order to have what you really want.

Learned behaviors have replaced the biologically given ones.