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Earth Day Uses One Of Humanity's Great Discoveries, The Discovery Of Anniversaries By Which, Throughout Time, Human Beings Have Kept Their Sorrows And Their Joys, Their Victories, Their Revelations And Their Obligations Alive, For Re-celebration And Re-dedication Another Year, Another Decade, Another Century, Another Eon.

-Margaret Mead

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Earth Day Uses One

Margaret Mead

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Earth Day Uses One Of Humanity's Great Discoveries, The Discovery Of Anniversaries By Which, Throughout Time, Human Beings Have Kept Their Sorrows And Their Joys, Their Victories, Their Revelations And Their Obligations Alive, For Re-celebration And Re-dedication Another Year, Another Decade, Another Century, Another Eon.

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More From Margaret Mead

A City Is A Place Where There Is No Need To Wait For Next Week To Get The Answer To A Question, To Taste The Food Of Any Country, To Find New Voices To Listen To And Familiar Ones To Listen To Again.

I Approached The Idea Of College With The Expectation Of Taking Part In An Intellectual Feast. ... In College, In Some Way That I Devoutly Believed In But Could Not Explain, I Expected To Become A Person.

Maleness In America Is Not Absolutely Defined; It Has To Be Kept And Re-earned Every Day, And One Essential Element In The Definition Is Beating Women In Every Game That Both Sexes Play.

I Devoutly Believe That There Is No Difficulty Between Two People For Which Both Are Not Responsible.

For The Human Species To Evolve, The Conversation Must Deepen.

Human Beings Do Not Carry Civilization In Their Genes. All That We Do Carry In Our Genes Are Certain Capacities- The Capacity To Learn To Walk Upright, To Use Our Brains, To Speak, To Relate To Our Fellow Men, To Construct And Use Tools, To Explore The Universe, And To Express That Exploration In Religion, In Art, In Science, In Philosophy.

Earth Day Uses One Of Humanity's Great Discoveries, The Discovery Of Anniversaries By Which, Throughout Time, Human Beings Have Kept Their Sorrows And Their Joys, Their Victories, Their Revelations And Their Obligations Alive, For Re-celebration And Re-dedication Another Year, Another Decade, Another Century, Another Eon.

The Capacity For Friendship Usually Goes With Highly Developed Civilizations. The Ability To Cultivate People Differs By Culture And Class; But On The Whole, Educated People Have More Ways To Make Friends... . In England, For Instance, You Find Everyone In Your Class Has Read The Same Books. Here, People Grope For Something In Common-like A Newly Engaged Girl Who Came To Me And Said, "it's Absolutely Wonderful! His Uncle And My Cousin Were On The Same Football Team.

The Assumption That Men And Woman Are Essentially Alike In All Respects, Or Even In The Most Important Ones, Is A Damaging One, As Damaging As The Assumption That They Are Different In Ways In Which They Aren't Different, Perhaps More So.

No Society That Feeds Its Children On Tales Of Successful Violence Can Expect Them Not To Believe That Violence In The End Is Rewarded.

Envy Of The Male Role Can Come As Much From An Undervaluation Of The Role Of Wife And Mother As From An Overvaluation Of The Public Aspects Of Achievement That Have Been Reserved For Men.

All Social Change Comes From The Passion Of Individuals.

Men Have Always Been Afraid That Women Could Get Along Without Them.

Young People Are Moving Away From Feeling Guilty About Sleeping With Somebody To Feeling Guilty If They Are *not* Sleeping With Someone.

What Is New Is Not Bisexuality, But Rather The Widening Of Our Awareness And Acceptance Of Human Capacities For Sexual Love.

I Have Been Accused Of Having Believed When I Wrote Sex And Temperament That There Are No Sex Differences... This, Many Readers Felt, Was Too Much. It Was Too Pretty. I Must Have Found What I Was Looking For. But This Misconception Comes From A Lack Of Understanding Of What Anthropology Means, Of 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.

American Society Is Very Like A Fish Society. . . . Among Certain Species Of Fish, The Only Thing Which Determines Order Of Dominance Is Length Of Time In The Fishbowl. The Oldest Resident Picks On The Newest Resident, And If The Newest Resident Is Removed To A New Bowl, He, As Oldest Resident, Will Pick On The Newcomers.

Both Men And Women Are Conceived As Merely Capable Of Response To A Situation That Their Society Has Already Defined For Them As Sexual, And So The Arapesh Feel That It Is Necessary To Chaperon Betrothed Couples Who Are Too Young... With Their Definition Of Sex As A Response To An External Situation Rather Than As Spontaneous Desire, Both Men And Women Are Regarded As Helpless In The Face Of Seduction. Parents Warn Their Sons Even More Than They Warn Their Daughters Against Permitting Themselves To Get Into Situations In Which Someone Can Make Love To Them.

We Must Devise A System In Which Peace Is More Rewarding Than War.

Through A Grandmother's Voice And Hands The End Of Life Is Known At The Beginning.

Because Our Civilization Is Woven Of So Many Diverse Strands, The Ideas Which Any One Group Accepts Will Be Found To Contain Numerous Contradictions.

To Demand That Another Love What One Loves Is Tyranny Enough, But To Demand That Another Hate What One Hates, Is Even Worse.

Everyone Needs To Have Access Both To Grandparents And Grandchildren In Order To Be A Full Human Being.

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.

I Have Spent Most Of My Life Studying The Lives Of Other Peoples - Faraway Peoples - So That Americans Might Better Understand Themselves.

Lives Of Others

Mourning Has Become Unfashionable In The United States. The Bereaved Are Supposed To Pull Themselves Together As Quickly As Possible And To Reweave The Torn Fabric Of Life. ... We Do Not Allow ... For The Weeks And Months During Which A Loss Is Realized - A Beautiful Word That Suggests The Transmutation Of The Strange Into Something That Is One's Own.

People Are Still Encouraged To Marry As If They Could Count On Marriage Being For Life, And At The Same Time They Are Absorbing A Knowledge Of The Great Frequency Of Divorce.

Sooner Or Later I'm Going To Die, But I'm Not Going To Retire.

Sooner Or Later

You Can No Longer Save Your Family, Tribe Or Nation. You Can Only Save The Whole World.

Today's Children Are The First Generation To Grow Up In A World That Has The Power To Destroy Itself.

The Protection Of A Ten-year-old Girl From Her Father's Advances Is A Necessary Condition Of Social Order, But The Protection Of The Father From Temptation Is A Necessary Condition Of His Continued Social Adjustment. The Protections That Are Built Up In The Child Against Desire For The Parent Become The Essential Counterpart To The Attitudes In The Parent That Protect The Child.

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.

Children Not Only Have To Learn What Their Parents Learned In School, But Also Have To Learn How To Learn. This Has To Be Recognized As A New Problem Which Is Only Partly Solved.

I Think The Important Thing About Sisters Is That They Share The Same Minute, Familiar Life-style, The Same Little Sets Of Rules. Therefore They Can Keep House With Each Other Late In Life, Because They Share The Same Bunch Of Housewifely Prejudices. The Important Thing About Women Today Is, As They Get Older, They Still Keep House. It's One Reason They Don't Die, But Men Die When They Retire. Women Just Polish The Teacups.

Sisters, While They Are Growing Up, Tend To Be Very Rivalrous And As Young Mothers They Are Given To Continual Rivalrous Comparisons Of Their Several Children. But Once The Children Grow Older, Sisters Draw Closer Together And Often, In Old Age, They Become Each Other's Chosen And Most Happy Companions. In Addition To Their Shared Memories Of Childhood And Of Their Relationship To Each Other's Children, They Share Memories Of The Same Home, The Same Homemaking Style, And The Same Small Prejudices About Housekeeping That Carry The Echoes Of Their Mother's Voice.

Of All The Peoples Whom I Have Studied, From City Dwellers To Cliff Dwellers, I Always Find That At Least 50 Percent Would Prefer To Have At Least One Jungle Between Themselves And Their Mothers-in-law.

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.

No Matter How Free Divorce, How Frequently Marriages Break Up, In Most Societies There Is The Assumption Of Permanent Mating, Of The Idea That The Marriage Should Last As Long As Both Live. . . . No Known Society Has Ever Invented A Form Of Marriage Strong Enough To Stick That Did Not Contain The 'till Death Us Do Part' Assumption.

The Negative Cautions Of Science Are Never Popular.

Those Social Behaviors Which Automatically Preclude The Building Of A Democratic World Must Go - Every Social Limitation Of Human Beings In Terms Of Heredity, Whether It Be Of Race, Or Sex, Or Class. Every Social Institution Which Teaches Human Beings To Cringe To Those Above And Step On Those Below Must Be Replaced By Institutions Which Teach People To Look Each Other Straight In The Face.

Earth Day Reminds The People Of The World Of The Need For Continuing Care Which Is Vital To Earth's Safety.

Sometimes, Instead Of Helping People To Advance, A Discovery Or An Invention Holds Them Back.

For Immanuel Kant, The Term Anthropology Embraced All The Human Sciences, And Laid The Foundation Of Familiar Knowledge We Need, To Build Solidly Grounded Ideas About The Moral And Political Demands Of Human Life. Margaret Mead Saw Mid-twentieth-century Anthropology As Engaged In A Project No Less Ambitious Than Kant's Own, And Her Terry Lectures On Continuities In Cultural Evolution Provide An Excellent Point To Enter Into Her Reflections.

If A Fish Were An Anthropologist, The Last Thing It Would Discover Would Be Water.

This Is A Precious Possession Which We Cannot Afford To Tarnish, But Society Always Is Attempting To Make The Physician Into A Killer To Kill The Defective Child At Birth, To Leave The Sleeping Pills Beside The Bed Of The Cancer Patient ... It Is The Duty Of Society To Protect The Physicians From Such Requests.

The Task Of Each Family Is Also The Task Of All Humanity. This Is To Cherish The Living, Remember Those Who Have Gone Before, And Prepare For Those Who Are Not Yet Born.

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.

Never Believe That A Few Caring People Can't Change The World. For, Indeed, That's All Who Ever Have.

I Was Wise Enough To Never Grow Up While Fooling Most People Into Believing I Had.

Dear Math, Please Grow Up And Solve Your Own Problems. I'm Tired Of Solving Them For You. Always Remember That You Are Absolutely Unique. Just Like Everyone Else.

We May Say That Many, If Not All, Of The Personality Traits Which We Have Called Masculine Or Feminine Are As Lightly Linked To Sex As Are The Clothing, The Manners, And The Form Of Headdress That A Society At A Given Period Assigns To Either Sex.

Masculine And Feminine

I Do Not Believe In Using Women In Combat, Because Females Are Too Fierce.

Monogamous Heterosexual Love Is Probably One Of The Most Difficult, Complex And Demanding Of Human Relationships.

Never Underestimate That A Small Group Of People Can Hold Up A Liquor License. Sometimes, It's The Only Thing That Can.

The Assumption That Men Were Created Equal, With An Equal Ability To Make An Effort And Win An Earthly Reward, Although Denied Every Day By Experience, Is Maintained Every Day By Our Folklore And Our Daydreams.

Fathers Are Biological Necessities, But Social Accidents.

In The Presence Of Grandparent And Grandchild, Past And Future Merge In The Present.

I Discovered When I Had A Child Of My Own That I Had Become A Biased Observer Of Small Children. Instead Of Looking At Them With Affectionate But Nonpartisan Eyes, I Saw Each Of Them As Older Or Younger, Bigger Or Smaller, More Or Less Graceful, Intelligent, Or Skilled Than My Own Child.

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.

Even Though The Ship May Go Down, The Journey Goes On.

Contentment Can Be Bought At A Price That One Can Not Possibly Pay.

The Important Thing About Women Today Is, As They Get Older, They Still Keep House. It's One Reason Why They Don't Die, But Men Die When They Retire. Women Just Polish The Teacups.

In Contrast To Our Own Social Environment Which Brings Out Different Aspects Of Human Nature And Often Demonstrated That Behavior Which Occurs Almost Invariably In Individuals Within Our Society Is Nevertheless Due Not To Original Nature But To Social Environment; And A Homogeneous And Simple Development Of The Individual May Be Studied.

Never Ever Depend On Governments Or Institutions To Solve Any Major Problems. All Social Change Comes From The Passion Of Individuals.

Humanity . . . Lies In Man's Capacity To Question The Known And Imagine The Unknown.

One Characteristic Of Americans Is That They Have No Toleration At All Of Anybody Putting Up With Anything. We Believe That Whatever Is Going Wrong Ought To Be Fixed.

Characteristics

It Is Not Until Science Has Become A Discipline To Which The Research Ability Of Any Mind From Any Class In Society Can Be Attracted That It Can Become Rigorously Scientific.

No Skill, No Special Aptitude, No Vividness Of Imagination Or Precision Of Thinking Would Go Unrecognized Because The Child Who Possessed It Was Of One Sex Rather Than The Other. No Child Would Be Relentlessly Shaped To One Pattern Of Behavior, But Instead There Should Be Many Patterns, In A World That Had Learned To Allow To Each Individual The Pattern Which Was Most Congenial To His Gifts.

Life In The Twentieth Century Is Like A Parachute Jump: You Have To Get It Right The First Time.

Life Is In One Of Its Smoother Phases ... I've No Responsibilities In The World Except Friends And Students And Cherishing The Life Of The World -- And The Belief That There Is Enough Love To Go Round.

Any Town That Doesn't Have Sidewalks Doesn't Love Its Children.

Today Our Approaches To Children Are Fragmented And Partial. Those Who Care For Well Children Know Little Of Children Who Are Sick. The Deep Knowledge That Comes From The Intensive Attempt To Cure Is Separated From The Knowledge Of Those Whose Main Task Is To Teach.

Most People Prefer To Carry Out The Kinds Of Experiments That Allow The Scientist To Feel That He Is In Full Control Of The Situation Rather Than Surrendering Himself To The Situation, As One Must In Studying Human Beings As They Actually Live.

Having Two Bathrooms Ruined The Capacity To Co-operate.

Living In The Modern World, Clothed And Muffled, Forced To Convey Our Sense Of Our Bodies In Terms Of Remote Symbols Like Walking Sticks And Umbrellas And Handbags, It Is Easy To Lose Sight Of The Immediacy Of The Human Body Plan.

It Is Typical, In America, That A Person's Hometown Is Not The Place Where He Is Living Now But Is The Place He Left Behind.

In All Cultures, Human Beings - In Order To Be Human - Must Understand The Nonhuman.

If We Are To Give Our Utmost Effort And Skill And Enthusiasm, We Must Believe In Ourselves, Which Means Believing In Our Past And In Our Future, In Our Parents And In Our Children, In That Particular Blend Of Moral Purpose And Practical Inventiveness Which Is The American Character.

What Are The Determinative Factors In The Early Training Of The Child Which Assures That It Will Be Placid And Contented, Unaggressive And Non-initiatory, Non-competitive And Responsive, Warm, Docile, And Trusting?

We End Up With The Contradictory Picture Of A Society That Appears To Throw Its Doors Wide Open To Women, But Translates Her Every Step Towards Success As Having Been Damaging.

Ninety-nine Percent Of The Time Humans Have Lived On This Planet We've Lived In Tribes, Groups Of 12 To 36 People. Only During Times Of War, Or What We Have Now, Which Is The Psychological Equivalent Of War, Does The Nuclear Family Prevail, Because It's The Most Mobile Unit That Can Ensure The Survival Of The Species. But For The Full Flowering Of The Human Spirit We Need Groups, Tribes.

The Negative Cautions Of Science Are Never Popular. If The Experimentalist Would Not Commit Himself, The Social Philosopher, The Preacher, And The Pedagogue Tried The Harder To Give A Short-cut Answer.

In Every Human Society Of Which We Have Any Record, There Are Those Who Teach And Those Who Learn, For Learning A Way Of Life Is Implicit In All Human Culture As We Know It. But The Separation Of The Teacher's Role From The Role Of All Adults Who Inducted The Young Into The Habitual Behavior Of The Group, Was A Comparatively Late Invention. Furthermore, When We Do Find Explicit And Defined Teaching, In Primitive Societies We Find It Tied In With A Sense Of The Rareness Or The Precariousness Of Some Human Tradition.

...recognize And Respect Earth's Beautiful Systems Of Balance, Between The Presence Of Animals On Land, The Fish In The Sea, Birds In The Air, Mankind, Water, Air, And Land. Most Importantly There Must Always Be Awareness Of The Actions By People That Can Disturb This Precious Balance.

Many Societies Have Educated Their Male Children On The Simple Device Of Teaching Them Not To Be Women.

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.

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.

Mothers Are A Biological Necessity; Fathers Are A Social Invention

Britons Put Up With, Americans Fix, Canadians Cope

Women Have An Important Contribution To Make.

Important Contributions

Man's Most Human Characteristic Is Not His Ability To Learn, Which He Shares With Many Other Species, But His Ability To Teach And Store What Others Have Developed And Taught Him.

Human Nature Is Almost Unbelievably Malleable, Responding Accurately And Contrastingly To Contrasting Cultural Conditions.

Where We Choose To Put Our Attention Changes Our Brain, Which In Time Can Change How We See And Interact With The World.

You Can Never Have A Relationship With Someone Whose Smell You Don't Like.

... Some Veil Between Childhood And The Present Is Necessary. If The Veil Is Withdrawn, The Artistic Imagination Sickens And Dies, The Prophet Looks In The Mirror With A Disillusioned And Cynical Sneer, The Scientist Goes Fishing.

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.

It Is Of Very Doubtful Value To Enlist The Gifts Of A Woman Into Fields That Have Been Defined As Male; It Frightens The Men, Unsexes The Women, And Muffles And Distorts The Contribution Women Could Make.

Mead's Anthropology Had Many Other Red, White And Blue- Blooded Virtues. One Was The Common Anthropological Conceit, Out Of Which She Made A Career, To The Effect That The Ultimate Value Of Studying Other Cultures Was The Use We Could Make Of Them To Reconstruct Our Own - A Heady Kind Of Intellectual Imperialism, As If The Final Meaning Of Others' Lives Was Their Significance For Us.

Even Very Recently, The Elders Could Say: 'you Know, I Have Been Young And You Never Have Been Old.' But Today's Young People Can Reply: 'you Never Have Been Young In The World I Am Young In, And You Never Can Be.' ... The Older Generation Will Never See Repeated In The Lives Of Young People Their Own Unprecedented Experience Of Sequentially Emerging Change. This Break Between Generations Is Wholly New: It Is Planetary And Universal.

Chief Among Our Gains Must Be Reckoned This Possibility Of Choice, The Recognition Of Many Possible Ways Of Life, Where Other Civilizations Have Recognized Only One. Where Other Civilizations Give A Satisfactory Outlet To Only One Temperamental Type, Be He Mystic Or Soldier, Business Man Or Artist, A Civilization In Which There Are Many Standards Offers A Possibility Of Satisfactory Adjustment To Individuals Of Many Different Temperamental Types, Of Diverse Gifts And Varying Interests.

There Is No More Creative Force In The World Than The Menopausal Woman With Zest.

The Ability To Learn Is Older As It Is Also More Widespread Than Is The Ability To Teach.

Injustice Experienced In The Flesh, In Deeply Wounded Flesh, Is The Stuff Out Of Which Change Explodes.

Where Families Suffer From Disasters That Are Preventable, This Is A Measure Of A Whole Nation's Neglect. A Society Imperils Its Own Future When, Out Of Negligence Or Contempt, It Overlooks The Need Of Children To Be Reared In A Family ... Or When, In The Midst Of Plenty, Some Families Cannot Give Their Children Adequate Food And Shelter, Safe Activity And Rest, And An Opportunity To Grow Into Full Adulthood As People Who Can Care For And Cherish Other Human Beings Like Themselves.

I Learned To Observe The World Around Me, And To Note What I Saw

There Is No Lonelier Person Than The One Who Lives With A Spouse With Whom He Or She Cannot Communicate.

The Most Intractable Problem Today Is Not Pollution Or Technology Or War; But The Lack Of Belief That The Future Is Very Much In The Hands Of The Individual.

Creationism: The Theory That Rome Was Built In A Day.

Our First And Most Pressing Problem Is How To Do Away With Warfare As A Method Of Solving Conflicts Between National Groups Or Between Groups Within A Society Who Have Different Views About How The Society Is To Be Run. If You Look Back, You Will See That Warfare Was An Invention, Just As Ways Of Handling Government Or Taxes Are Inventions. You Will See, Too, That Once People Use An Invention They Go On Using It Until They Find Another Which They Think Is Superior.

No Country That Permits Firearms To Be Widely And Randomly Distributed Among Its Population - Especially Firearms That Are Capable Of Wounding And Killing Human Beings - Can Expect To Escape Violence, And A Great Deal Of Violence.

Always Remember That You Are Absolutely Unique. Just Like Everyone Else.

It Has Been A Woman's Task Throughout History To Go On Believing In Life When There Was Almost No Hope.

Whatever Advantages May Have Arisen, In The Past, Out Of The Existence Of A Specially Favored And Highly Privileged Aristocracy, It Is Clear To Me That Today No Argument Can Stand That Supports Unequal Opportunity Or Any Intrinsic Disqualification For Sharing In The Whole Of Life.

The Time Has Come, I Think, When We Must Recognize Bisexuality As A Normal Form Of Human Behavior.

You Know You Love Someone When You Cannot Put Into Words How They Make You Feel.

Children Must Be Taught How To Think, Not What To Think.

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.

I Was A Child That Both My Parents Wanted. I Was Told From The Time I Was Born That I Was Totally Satisfactory. I Had A Chance To Be What I Wanted To Be.

Photographs [are] Of Course Heavily Dependent Upon The Culture, The Disciplinary Point Of View And The Idiosyncratic Vision Of The Particular Photographer-analyst.

It Used To Be When We Said, ''til Death Do Us Part,' Death Parted Us Pretty Soon. That's Why Marriages Used To Last Forever. Everybody Was Dead.

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.

Never Underestimate The Ability Of A Small Group Of Committed Individuals To Change The World.

To The Extent A Person Makes, Invents Or Thinks Something That Is New To Him, He May Be Said To Have Performed A Creative Act.

We Have Nowhere Else To Go... This Is All We Have.

I Suddenly Realized That Through No Act Of My Own I Had Become Biologically Related To A New Human Being.

I Think Rigid Heterosexuality Is A Perversion Of Nature.

Heterosexuality Is

Heterosexuality

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.

We Must Bear In Mind The Possibility That The Greater Opportunities Open In The Twentieth Century To Women May Be Quite Withdrawn, And That We May Return To Stricter Regimentation Of Women.

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.

The Problem With America Today Is That Too Many People Know Too Much About Not Enough.

Pigs And Cows And Chickens And People Are All Competing For Grain.

‎ 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.

As Far Back As Our Knowledge Takes Us, Human Beings Have Lived In Families. We Know Of No Period When This Was Not So. We Know Of No People Who Have Succeeded For Long In Dissolving The Family Or Displacing It.

The Experience Of Having Brothers And Sisters, Born Of The Same Parents, Sleeping Under The Same Roof, Eating At The Same Table, Is An Inescapable, Delightful And Repelling, Desired And Abhorred Part Of Each Child's Life.

Human Nature Is Potentially Aggressive And Destructive And Potentially Orderly And Constructive.

The Need To Find Meaning...is As Real As The Need For Trust And For Love, For Relations With Other Human Beings.

It Was Not Until We Saw The Picture Of The Earth, From The Moon, That We Realized How Small And How Helpless This Planet Is - Something That We Must Hold In Our Arms And Care For.

The Older Child Who Has Lost Or Broken Some Valuable Thing Will Be Found When His Parents Return, Not Run Away, Not Willing To Confess, But In A Deep Sleep. The Thief Whose Case Is Being Tried Falls Asleep.

I Have Tried To Answer The Question Which Sent Me To Samoa: Are The Disturbances Which Vex Our Adolescents Due To The Nature Of Adolescence Itself Or To The Civilization? Under Different Conditions Does Adolescence Present A Different Picture?

Don't Depend On Governments Or Corporations To Fix Problems. Social Revolutions Are Led By Passionate Individuals And That's What Makes The Difference.

I Don't Consider My Marriages As Failures! It's Idiotic To Assume That Because A Marriage Ends, It's Failed.

Be Who You Really Are, Do What You Want To Do, In Order To Have What You Really Want.

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.

The Differences Between The Two Sexes Is One Of The Important Conditions Upon Which We Have Built The Many Varieties Of Human Culture That Give Human Beings Dignity And Stature.

Every Time We Liberate A Woman, We Liberate A Man.

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.

Every Act Of Motherhood Contains A Dual Intent, As The Mother Holds The Child Close And Prepares It To Move Way From Her, As She Supports The Child And Stands It Firmly On Its Own Feet, And As She Guards It Against Danger And Sends It Out Across The Yard, Down By The Stream, And Across The Traffic-crowded Highway. Unless A Mother Can Do Both - Gather Her Child Close And Turn Her Child Out Toward The World - She Will Fail In Her Purpose.

We Grow Up Never Questioning That Which Is Unquestioned Around Us.

I Was Brought Up To Believe That The Only Thing Worth Doing Was To Add To The Sum Of Accurate Information In The World.

I Used To Say To My Classes That The Ways To Get Insight Are: To Study Infants; To Study Animals; To Study Primitive People; To Be Psychoanalyzed; To Have A Religious Conversion And Get Over It; To Have A Psychotic Episode And Get Over It; Or To Have A Love Affair With An Old Russian. And I Stopped Saying That When A Little Dancer In The Front Row Put Up Her Hand And Said, 'does He Have To Be Old?

Earth Day Is The First Holy Day Which Transcends All National Borders, Yet Preserves All Geographical Integrities, Spans Mountains And Oceans And Time Belts, And Yet Brings People All Over The World Into One Resonating Accord, Is Devoted To The Preservation Of The Harmony In Nature And Yet Draws Upon The Triumphs Of Technology, The Measurement Of Time, And Instantaneous Communication Through Space.

Warfare ... Is Just An Invention, Older And More Widespread Than The Jury System, But None The Less An Invention.

Just As The Difference In Height Between Males Is No Longer A Realistic Issue, Now That Lawsuits Have Been Substituted For Hand-to-hand Encounters, So The Difference In Strength Between Men And Women Is No Longer Worth Elaboration In Cultural Institutions.

To The Extent That Either Sex Is Disadvantaged, The Whole Culture Is Poorer, And The Sex That, Superficially, Inherits The Earth, Inherits Only A Very Partial Legacy. The More Whole The Culture, The More Whole Each Member, Each Man, Each Woman, Each Child Will Be.

The Semimetaphysical Problems Of The Individual And Society, Of Egoism And Altruism, Of Freedom And Determinism, Either Disappear Or Remain In The Form Of Different Phases In The Organization Of A Consciousness That Is Fundamentally Social.

War Is Only An Invention, Not A Biological Necessity.

If I Were To Be Taken Hostage, I Would Not Plead For Release Nor Would I Want My Government To Be Blackmailed. I Think Certain Government Officials, Industrialists And Celebrated Persons Should Make It Clear They Are Prepared To Be Sacrificed If Taken Hostage. If That Were Done, What Gain Would There Be For Terrorists In Taking Hostages?

The Prophet Who Fails To Present A Bearable Alternative And Yet Preaches Doom Is Part Of The Trap That He Postulates. Not Only Does He Picture Us Caught In A Tremendous Man-made Or God-made Trap From Which There Is No Escape, But We Must Also Listen To Him Day In, Day Out, Describe How The Trap Is Inexorably Closing. To Such Prophecies The Human Race, As Presently Bred And Educated And Situated, Is Incapable Of Listening. So Some Dance And Some Immolate Themselves As Human Torches; Some Take Drugs And Some Artists Spill Their Creativity In Sets Of Randomly Placed Dots On A White Ground.

There Are Now No Elders Who Know More Than The Young Themselves About What The Young Are Experiencing.

Cynicism Is The Other Thing That Goes With Sentimentality.

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.

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

Laughter, That Distinctively Human Emotion, Laughter Which Springs From Trust In The Other, From Willingness To Put Oneself Momentarily In The Other's Place, Even At One's Own Expense, Is The Special Emotional Basis Of Democratic Procedures, Just As Pride Is The Emotion Of An Aristocracy, Shame Of A Crowd That Rules, And Fear Of A Police State.

Of Course We Need Children! Adults Need Children In Their Lives To Listen To And Care For, To Keep Their Imagination Fresh And Their Hearts Young And To Make The Future A Reality For Which They Are Willing To Work.

Orientation In Time, Space, And Status Are The Essentials Of Social Existence, And The Balinese, Although They Make Very Strong Spirits For Ceremonial Occasions, With A Few Startling Exceptions Resist Alcohol, Because If One Drinks One Loses One's Orientation. Orientation Is Felt As A Protection Rather Than As A Strait Jacket And Its Loss Provokes Extreme Anxiety.

Man's Role Is Uncertain, Undefined, And Perhaps Unnecessary.

Once Any Group In Society Stands In A Relatively Deprived Position In Relation To Other Groups, It Is Genuinely Deprived.

Loving You Is Just Like Breathing, As Effortless, And As Lovely.

Jealousy Is Not A Barometer By Which The Depth Of Love Can Be Read. It Merely Records The Degree Of The Lover's Insecurity.

The Closest Friends I Made All Through Life Have Been People Who Also Grew Up Close To A Loved And Loving Grandmother Or Grandfather.

I Learned The Value Of Hard Work By Working Hard.

If Man Has Not Found Ways To Deal With Environmental Problems Such As Water And Air Pollution By 1998, It Will Be Too Late. The Future Is Not Determined And It Lies In Our Own Hands.

Our Treatment Of Both Older People And Children Reflects The Value We Place On Independence And Autonomy. We Do Our Best To Make Our Children Independent From Birth. We Leave Them All Alone In Rooms With The Lights Out And Tell Them, 'go To Sleep By Yourselves.' And The Old People We Respect Most Are The Ones Who Will Fight For Their Independence, Who Would Sooner Starve To Death Than Ask For Help.

We Are Now At A Point Where We Must Educate Our Children In What No One Knew Yesterday, And Prepare Our Schools For What No One Knows Yet.

Because Of Their Age Long Training In Human Relations For That Is What Feminine Intuition Really Is Women Have A Special Contribution To Make Any Group Enterprise.

The Solution To Adult Problems Tomorrow Depends On Large Measure Upon How Our Children Grow Up Today.

When I Stand On A Street In A Canadian City And Look Across The Street, It Couldn't Be Anywhere But Canada, But How Can I Prove It?

Earth Day Is The First Holy Day...and Is Devoted To The Harmony Of Nature... The Celebration Offends No Historical Calendar, Yet It Transcends Them All.

We Need Every Human Gift And Cannot Afford To Neglect Any Gift Because Of Artificial Barriers Of Sex Or Race Or Class Or National Origin.

In This Country, Some People Start Being Miserable About Growing Old While They Are Still Young.

I Am Interested In What Happens To People Who Find The Whole Of Life So Rewarding That They Are Able To Move Through It With The Same Kind Of Delight In Which A Child Moves Through A Game.

Much Of The Ill-tempered Railing Against Women That Has Characterized The Popular Writing Of The Last Two Years Is A Half-heartedattempt To Find A Way Back To A More Balanced Relationship Between Our Biological Selves And The World We Have Built. So Women Are Scolded Both For Being Mothers And For Not Being Mothers, For Wanting To Eat Their Cake And Have It Too, And For Not Wanting To Eat Their Cake And Have It Too.

I Did Not Write It [coming Of Age In Samoa] As A Popular Book, But Only With The Hope That It Would Be Intelligible To Those Who Might Make The Best Use Of Its Theme, That Adolescence Need Not Be The Time Of Stress And Strain Which Western Society Made It; That Growing Up Could Be Freer And Easier And Less Complicated; And Also That There Were Prices To Pay For The Very Lack Of Complication I Found In Samoa - Less Intensity, Less Individuality, Less Involvement With Life.

The Anonymity Of The City Is One Of Its Strengths As Well As - Carried Too Far - One Of Its Weaknesses.

Our Humanity Rests Upon A Series Of Learned Behaviors, Woven Together Into Patterns That Are Infinitely Fragile And Never Directly Inherited.

We Won't Have A Society If We Destroy The Environment.

Samoa Culture Demonstrates How Much The Tragic Or The Easy Solution Of The Oedipus Situation Depends Upon The Inter-relationship Between Parents And Children, And Is Not Created Out Of Whole Cloth By The Young Child's Biological Impulses.

One Of The Oldest Human Needs Is Having Someone To Wonder Where You Are When You Don't Come Home At Night.

The Time Has Come, I Think, When We Must Recognize Bisexuality As A Normal Form Of Human Behavior... We Shall Not Really Succeed In Discarding The Straitjacket Of Our Cultural Beliefs About Sexual Choice If We Fail To Come To Terms With The Well-documented, Normal Human Capacity To Love Members Of Both Sexes.

Capacity To Love

The Institution Of Marriage In All Societies Is A Pattern Within Which The Strains Put By Civilization On Males And Females Alike Must Be Resolved, A Pattern Within Which Men Must Learn, In Return For A Variety Of Elaborate Rewards, New Forms In Which Sexual Spontaneity Is Still Possible, And Women Must Learn To Discipline Their Receptivity To A Thousand Other Considerations.

We Will Be A Better Country When Each Religious Group Can Trust Its Members To Obey The Dictates Of Their Own Religious Faith Without Assistance From The Legal Structure Of The Country.

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.

And As I Had My Father's Kind Of Mind-which Was Also His Mother's-i Learned That The Mind Is Not Sex-typed.

We Must Have...a Place Where Children Can Have A Whole Group Of Adults They Can Trust.

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.

In Each Age There Is A Series Of Pressing Questions Which Must Be Asked And Answered. On The Correctness Of The Questions Depends The Survival Of Those Who Ask; On The Quality Of The Answers Depends The Quality Of The Life Those Survivors Will Lead.

One Of The Most Dangerous Things That Can Happen To A Child Is To Kill Or Torture An Animal And Get Away With It.

Leisure And The Cultivation Of Human Capacities Are Inextricably Interdependent.

Instead Of Being Presented With Stereotypes By Age, Sex, Color, Class, Or Religion, Children Must Have The Opportunity To Learn That Within Each Range, Some People Are Loathsome And Some Are Delightful.

People In America, Of Course, Live In All Sorts Of Fashions, Because They Are Foreigners, Or Unlucky, Or Depraved, Or Without Ambition; People Live Like That, But Americans Live In White Detached Houses With Green Shutters. Rigidly, Blindly, The Dream Takes Precedence.

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