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

Margaret Mead

Human nature is almost unbelievably malleable, responding accurately and contrastingly to contrasting cultural conditions.
MARGARET MEAD

Condition Cultural Human Nature Respond
Don’t depend on governments or corporations to fix problems. Social revolutions are led by passionate individuals and that’s what makes the difference.
MARGARET MEAD

Corporation Difference Government Passionate Problem
The problem with America today is that too many people know too much about not enough.
MARGARET MEAD

Enough Knowledge Known People Problem
We grow up never questioning that which is unquestioned around us.
MARGARET MEAD

Curiosity Growth Philosophy Question
If one cannot state a matter clearly enough so that even an intelligent twelve-year-old can understand it, one should remain within the cloistered walls of the university and laboratory until one gets a better grasp of one’s subject matter.
MARGARET MEAD

Enough Intelligence Oneself State Understand
We have nowhere else to go, this is all we have.
MARGARET MEAD

Journey Path Present Time
Grandparents are given a second chance to enjoy parenthood with fewer of its tribulations and anxieties.
MARGARET MEAD

Anxiety Chance Enjoyment Parent
To demand that another love what one loves is tyranny enough, but to demand that another hate what one hates, is even worse.
MARGARET MEAD

Demand Enough Hate Love Worst
Humanity lies in man’s capacity to question the known and imagine the unknown.
MARGARET MEAD

Capacity Humanity Imagination Man Question Unknown
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

Cruel Fake Learning Old Age Play Regret Work
A woman, even a brilliant woman, must have two qualities in order to fulfill her promise: more energy than mere mortals, and the ability to outwit her culture.
MARGARET MEAD

Ability Brilliant Culture Fulfill Order Promise Quality Woman
The way in which each human infant is transformed into the finished adult, into the complicated individual version of his city and his century is one of the most fascinating studies open to the curious minded.
MARGARET MEAD

Adult Complication Curiosity Fascination Human Mindset Transformation Way
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
What we lack is not so much leisure to do as time to reflect and time to feel. What we seldom “take” is time to experience the things that have happened, the things that are happening, the things that are still ahead of us.
MARGARET MEAD

Experience Leisure Reflection Time
It is easier to change a man’s religion than to change his diet.
MARGARET MEAD

Change Diet Himself Man Religion
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

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

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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