Margaret Mead

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

Margaret Mead (16 December 1901 – 15 November 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist.

Sourced

If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.

• If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.
  • Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935)

• Female animals defending their young are notoriously ferocious and lack the playful delight in combat which characterizes the mock combats of males of the same species. There seems very little ground for claiming that the mother of young children is more peaceful, more responsible, and more thoughtful for the welfare of the human race than is her husband or brother.
  • Male and Female (1955), Introduction

• The first step in the direction of a world rule of law is the recognition that peace no longer is an unobtainable ideal but a necessary condition of continued human existence. But to take even this step we must return to a calm and responsible frame of mind in which we can face the long patient tasks ahead.
  • "Are Shelters the Answer?", The New York Times Magazine (26 November 1961), p. 125.

• The contempt for law and the contempt for the human consequences of lawbreaking go from the bottom to the top of American society.
  • Reported in Claire Safran, "Impeachment?" Redbook, (April 1974).

• Women should be permitted to volunteer for non-combat service, [...] We have no real way of knowing whether the kinds of training that teach men both courage and restraint would be adaptable to women or effective in a crisis. But the evidence of history and comparative studies of other species suggest that women as a fighting body might be far less amenable to the rules that prevent war from becoming a massacre and, with the use of modern weapons, that protect the survival of all humanity. That is what I meant by saying that women in combat might be too fierce.
  • Remarks about the military draft (June 1968) in Margaret Mead, Some Personal Views (1979), edited by Rhoda Metraux, pp. 35–36

• Because of their age-long training in human relations — for that is what feminine intuition really is — women have a special contribution to make to any group enterprise, and I feel it is up to them to contribute the kinds of awareness that few men [...] have incorporated through their education.
  • Blackberry Winter (1972), Ch. 14

• To cherish the life of the world.
  • Epitaph, as quoted in Margaret Mead : A Voice for the Century‎ (1982) by Robert Cassidy, p. 152

• No society has ever yet been able to handle the temptations of technology to mastery, to waste, to exuberance, to exploration and exploitation. We have to learn to cherish this earth and cherish it as something that's fragile, that's only one, it's all we have. We have to use our scientific knowledge to correct the dangers that have come from science and technology.
  • Radio excerpt reproduced by Voice of America (17 January 2010)

Disputed

• Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
  • Widely attributed, e.g. And I Quote : The Definitive Collection of Quotes, Sayings, and Jokes for the Contemporary Speechmaker (1992), edited by Ashton Applewhite, Tripp Evans, and Andrew Frothingham
  • No contemporaneous source is known. Ralph Keyes, in the introduction to The Quote Verifier (2006), p. xvi, gives this as an example of situations where derivative sources merely cite each other and no one knows the original source.

Misattributed

• Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.
  • This was designated "Meade's Maxim" in a 1979 book, but not linked to Margaret Mead. Beginning around 2001, this was interpreted as Margaret Mead, but there's no evidence of this.

External links

• Library of Congress, Margaret Mead: Human Nature and the Power of Culture
• The Institute for Intercultural Studies - ethnographic institute founded by Mead, with resources relating to Mead's work
  • Margaret Mead biography at IIS
• Profile at Kirjasto
• Creative Intelligence: Female ("The Silent Revolution: Creative Man In Contemporary Society" - Talk at UC Berkeley (1962) online audio
• American Museum of Natural History, Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival