black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Women want mediocre men, and men are working to be as mediocre as possible.

Margaret Mead

Pigs and cows and chickens and people are all competing for grain.
MARGARET MEAD

Animal Competition People
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
The need to find meaning is as real as the need for trust and for love, for relations with other human beings.
MARGARET MEAD

Finding Human Meaning Need Reality Relationship Trust
There is no greater power in the world than the zest of a postmenopausal woman.
MARGARET MEAD

Greatness Power Woman World
We won’t have a society if we destroy the environment.
MARGARET MEAD

Destroy Environment Society
Motherhood is a biological fact, while fatherhood is a social invention.
MARGARET MEAD

Fact Family Invention Mom Social
Sooner or later I’m going to die, but I’m not going to retire.
MARGARET MEAD

Death Myself Retirement
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

Beyond Children Development Life Style Live Ourselves People Resource
I do not believe in using women in combat, because females are too fierce.
MARGARET MEAD

Believe Fierce Woman
Loving you is just like breathing, as effortless, and as lovely.
MARGARET MEAD

Breathe Effort Love
No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded.
MARGARET MEAD

Believe End Feed Reward Society Violence
Be who you really are, do what you want to do, in order to have what you really want.
MARGARET MEAD

Order Yourself
As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.
MARGARET MEAD

Appreciation Culture Home Knowledge Travel Wisdom
With the exception of the few cases to be discussed in the next chapter, adolescence represented no period of crisis or stress, but was instead an orderly developing of a set of slowly maturing interests and activities.
MARGARET MEAD

Activity Crisis Development Discussion Exception Interest Mature Representation Stress
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

Childhood Follow Mindset Pain Togetherness
The anonymity of the city is one of its strengths as well as – carried too far – one of its weaknesses.
MARGARET MEAD

Anonymous Carry Strength Weakness
Our humanity rests upon a series of learned behaviors, woven together into patterns that are infinitely fragile and never directly inherited.
MARGARET MEAD

Behavior Direct Humanity Inheritance Learning Series
In almost any society I think, the quality of the nonconformists is likely to be just as good as and no better than that of the conformists.
MARGARET MEAD

Better Goodness Society Thinking
There is no lonelier person than the one who lives with a spouse with whom he or she cannot communicate.
MARGARET MEAD

Communication Himself Lonely Person
The atmosphere is the key symbol of global interdependence.
MARGARET MEAD

Atmosphere Global Interdependence Key Symbol
Prayer does not use up artificial energy, doesn’t burn up any fossil fuel, doesn’t pollute. Neither does song, neither does love, neither does the dance.
MARGARET MEAD

Burn Dance Energy Love Pollution Prayer
What the world needs is not romantic lovers who are sufficient unto themselves, but husbands and wives who live in communities, relate to other people, carry on useful work and willingly give time and attention to their children.
MARGARET MEAD

Attention Carry Children Community Husband Lover Need Romantic Time Willing World
Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.
MARGARET MEAD

Children Ideas Teaching Thinking
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
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
For the very first time the young are seeing history being made before it is censored by their elders.
MARGARET MEAD

Elder History See Time Young
There is no evidence that suggests women are naturally better at caring for children… with the fact of child-bearing out of the centre of attention, there is even more reason for treating girls first as human beings, then as women.
MARGARET MEAD

Children Evidence Fact Natural Reason Treat Woman

Women want mediocre men, and men are working to be as mediocre as possible.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Women want mediocre men, and men are working to be as mediocre as possible.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Margaret Mead Quotes