Margaret Mead Quotes

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

Beginning Born Compel Humility Struggle
Laughter is man’s most distinctive emotional expression. Man shares the capacity for love and hate, anger and fear, loyalty and grief, with other living creatures. But humour, which has an intellectual as well as an emotional element belongs to man
MARGARET MEAD

Creature Emotional Expression Grief Humor Intellectual Laughter Loyalty Man
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
Once any group in society stands in a relatively deprived position in relation to other groups, it is genuinely deprived.
MARGARET MEAD

Genuine Group Position Relation Society
There is no hierarchy of values by which one culture has the right to insist on all its own values and deny those of another.
MARGARET MEAD

Culture Each Other Hierarchy Right Value
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
Pigs and cows and chickens and people are all competing for grain.
MARGARET MEAD

Animal Competition People
Sister is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship.
MARGARET MEAD

Competition Relationship Sister Strong
There is no greater power in the world than the zest of a postmenopausal woman.
MARGARET MEAD

Greatness Power Woman World
I think rigid heterosexuality is a perversion of nature.
MARGARET MEAD

Nature Pervert Thinking
What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things.
MARGARET MEAD

Different Entire People
Jealousy is not a barometer by which the depth of love can be read. It merely records the degree of the lover’s insecurity.
MARGARET MEAD

Insecurity Jealous Love Reading
‎ When a person is born we rejoice, and when they’re married we jubilate, but when they die we try to pretend nothing has happened.
MARGARET MEAD

Born Death Marriage Person Pretend Try
we came to realize that a civilization which rode roughshod over the way of life of other peoples was incorporating evil in its own way of life.
MARGARET MEAD

Civilization Life People Realize Way
Fathers are biological necessities, but social accidents.
MARGARET MEAD

Accident Biology Father Necessary Social
I do not believe in using women in combat, because females are too fierce.
MARGARET MEAD

Believe Fierce Woman
Our first and most pressing problem is how to do away with warfare as a method of solving conflicts between national groups within a society who have different views about how the society is to run.
MARGARET MEAD

Different First National Press Run Society View
Every time we liberate a woman, we liberate a man.
MARGARET MEAD

Liberty Man Philosophy Time Woman
Sometimes, instead of helping people to advance, a discovery or an invention holds them back.
MARGARET MEAD

Help Invention People Time
Blackberry winter, the time when the hoarforst lies on the blackberry blossoms; without this frost the berries will not set. It is the forerunner of a rich harvest.
MARGARET MEAD

Harvest Lying Rich Time Winter
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
Women have an important contribution to make.
MARGARET MEAD

Contribution Important Value Woman Women Empowerment
Young people are moving away from feeling guilty about sleeping with somebody to feeling guilty if they are *not* sleeping with someone.
MARGARET MEAD

Guilty People Sleep Young
Somehow, we have to get older people back close to growing children if we are to restore a sense of community, acquire knowledge of the past, and provide a sense of the future.
MARGARET MEAD

Children Community Future Growth Knowledge Old Past People
Through a grandmother’s voice and hands the end of life is known at the beginning.
MARGARET MEAD

Beginning End Hands Life Voice
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

Other Famous Personalities