Quotes by Margaret Mead

There is no reason to think a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens cannot change the world; Indeed, thats the only thing that ever has.

The young, free to act on their initiative, can lead their elders in the direction of the unknown... The children, the young, must ask the questions that we would never think to ask, but enough trust must be re-established so that the elders will be permitted to work with them on the answers.

A great deal of what I say just leaves me open, I suppose, to a vast amount of misunderstanding. A great deal of what I say is based on an assumption which I hold and don’t always state. You know my fury about people is based precisely on the fact that I consider them to be responsible, moral creatures who so often do not act that way. But I am not surprised when they do. I am not that wretched a pessimist, and I wouldn’t sound the way I sound if I did not expect what I expect from human beings, if I didn’t have some ultimate faith and love, faith in them and love for them. You see, I am a human being too, and I have no right to stand in judgment of the world as though I am not a part of it. What I am demanding of other people is what I am demanding of myself.- James Baldwin

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.

I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world.

When I stand on a street in a Canadian city and look across the street it couldnt be anywhere but Canada but how can I prove it?

No matter how many communes anybody invents the family always creeps back.

Jealousy is not a barometer by which the depth of love can be read. It merely records the degree of the lovers insecurity.

You just have to learn not to care about the dust mites under the beds.

We make our own criminals and their crimes are congruent with the national culture we all share. It has been said that a people get the kind of political leadership they deserve. I think they also get the kinds of crime and criminals they themselves bring into being.

Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.

In almost any society I think the quality of the non-conformists is like to be just as good as and no better than that of the conformists.

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.

I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to his or her fellow human beings.

Each suburban housewife spends her time presiding over a power plant sufficient to have staffed the palace of a Roman emperor with a hundred slaves.

I have a respect for manners as such, they are a way of dealing with people you dont agree with or like.

I learned the value of hard work by working hard.

Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive and potentially orderly and constructive.

Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess.

As long as any adult thinks that he, like the parents and teachers of old, can become introspective, invoking his own youth to understand the youth before him, he is lost.