black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Margaret Mead

I do not believe in using women in combat, because females are too fierce.
MARGARET MEAD

Believe Fierce Woman
Injustice experienced in the flesh, in deeply wounded flesh, is the stuff out of which change explodes.
MARGARET MEAD

Change Experience Explode Justice Wound
Pigs and cows and chickens and people are all competing for grain.
MARGARET MEAD

Animal Competition People
We – mankind – stand at the center of an evolutionary crisis, with a new evolutionary device – our consciousness of the crisis – as our unique contribution.
MARGARET MEAD

Consciousness Crisis Evolution Kind Man Ourselves Unique
[Partly as a consequence of male authority] prestige value always attaches to the activities of men.
MARGARET MEAD

Activity Attachment Man Prestige Value
The people of one nation alone cannot save their own children; each holds the responsibility for the others’ children.
MARGARET MEAD

Alone Children Nation People Responsibility Save
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

Behavior Coward Ethics Open Question
Life in the twentieth century is like a parachute jump: you have to get it right the first time.
MARGARET MEAD

Life Philosophy Right Sarcasm Time
If the future is to remain open and free, we need people who can tolerate the unknown, who will not need the support of completely worked out systems or traditional blueprints from the past.
MARGARET MEAD

Freedom Future Open Past People Support System Traditional Unknown
One characteristic of Americans is that they have no toleration at all of anybody putting up with anything. We believe that whatever is going wrong ought to be fixed.
MARGARET MEAD

Believe Character Fix Tolerance Wrong
Even though the ship may go down, the journey goes on.
MARGARET MEAD

Journey Ship Wreck
We will be a better country when each religious group can trust its members to obey the dictates of their own religious faith without assistance from the legal structure of the country.
MARGARET MEAD

Better Country Faith Member Religious Structure Trust
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

Care Earth Moon Ourselves Photograph Planet Realize
People are still encouraged to marry as if they could count on marriage being for life, and at the same time they are absorbing a knowledge of the great frequency of divorce.
MARGARET MEAD

Count Divorce Encouragement Knowledge Marriage People
We must recognize that beneath the superficial classifications of sex and race the same potentialities exist, recurring generation after generation, only to perish because society has no place for them.
MARGARET MEAD

Classification Existence Perish Potential Race Recognition Sex
Never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to change the world.
MARGARET MEAD

Ability Change Commitment Group Inspirational Small World

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Margaret Mead Quotes