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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.

-Margaret Mead

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I Have Been Accused

Margaret Mead

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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.

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

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.

My Grandmother Wanted Me To Get A Good Education, So She Kept Me As Far Away From Schools As Possible.

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

Human Beings Seem To Hold On More Tenaciously To A Cultural Identity That Is Learned Through Suffering Than To One That Has Been Acquired Through Pleasure And Delight.

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

When Human Beings Have Been Fascinated By The Contemplation Of Their Own Hearts, The More Intricate Biological Pattern Of The Female Has Become A Model For The Artist, The Mystic, And The Saint. When Mankind Turns Instead To What Can Be Done, Altered, Built, Invented, In The Outer World, All Natural Properties Of Men, Animals, Or Metals Become Handicaps To Be Altered Rather Than Clues To Be Followed.

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

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.

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

The United States Has The Power To Destroy The World, But Not The Power To Save It Alone

Many Women, Particularly Young Women, Have Claimed The Right To Use The Most Explicit Sex Terms, Including Extremely Vulgar Ones, In Public As Well As Private. But It Is Men, Far More Than Women, Who Have Been Liberated By This Change. For Now That Women Use These Terms, Men No Longer Need To Watch Their Own Language In The Presence Of Women. But Is This A Gain For 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.

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 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.

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

You Just Have To Learn Not To Care About The Dusty Mites Under The Beds.

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.

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.

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

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

Fathers Are Biological Necessities, But Social Accidents.

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.

Between Friends There Is No Bribery. ... The Relationship Of Friends Is Intrinsically Fair And Equal. Neither Feels Stronger Or More Clever Or More Beautiful Than The Other.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Britons Put Up With, Americans Fix, Canadians Cope

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

It Is Easier To Change A Man's Religion Than To Change His Diet.

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.

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.

Leisure And The Cultivation Of Human Capacities Are Inextricably Interdependent.

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.

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.

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.

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

Many People Are Shrinking From The Future And From Participation In The Movement Toward A New, Expanded Reality. And, Like Homesick Travelers Abroad, They Are Focusing Their Anxieties On Home. The Reasons Are Not Far To Seek. We Are At A Turning Point In Human History. . . . We Could Turn Our Attention To The Problems That Going To The Moon Certainly Will Not Solve ... But I Think This Would Be Fatal To Our Future. . . . A Society That No Longer Moves Forward Does Not Merely Stagnate; It Begins To Die.

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.

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.

Grandparents Are Given A Second Chance To Enjoy Parenthood With Fewer Of Its Tribulations And Anxieties.

In Our Contemporary World, No One Can Think Or Work With A Single Picture Of What A Family Is. No One Can Fit All Human Behavior, All Thought And Feeling, Into A Single Pattern.

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

For The Very First Time The Young Are Seeing History Being Made Before It Is Censored By Their Elders.

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.

An Ideal Culture Is One That Makes A Place For Every Human Gift

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

The Samoan Puts The Burden Of Amatory Success Upon The Man And Believes That Women Need More Initiating, More Time For Maturing Of Sexual Feeling. A Man Who Fails To Satisfy A Woman Is Looked Upon As A Clumsy, Inept Blunderer.

You "have A Date," You "go Out With A Date," You "groan Because There Isn't A Decent Date In Town." A Situation Defined As Containing A Girl - Or Boy - Of The Right Social Background, The Right Degree Of Popularity, A Little Higher Than Your Own.

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.

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.

Nobody Has Ever Before Asked The Nuclear Family To Live All By Itself In A Box The Way We Do. With No Relatives, No Support, We've Put It In An Impossible Situation.

Impossible Situations

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.

Dancing Is The Only Activity In Which Almost All Ages And Both Sexes Participate.

...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.

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.

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.

Each Home Has Been Reduced To The Bare Essentials -- To Barer Essentials Than Most Primitive People Would Consider Possible. Only One Woman's Hands To Feed The Baby, Answer The Telephone, Turn Off The Gas Under The Pot That Is Boiling Over, Soothe The Older Child Who Has Broken A Toy, And Open Both Doors At Once. She Is A Nutritionist, A Child Psychologist, An Engineer, A Production Manager, An Expert Buyer, All In One. Her Husband Sees Her As Free To Plan Her Own Time, And Envies Her; She Sees Him As Having Regular Hours And Envies Him.

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Cynicism Is The Other Thing That Goes With Sentimentality.

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

I Have A Respect For Manners As Such, They Are A Way Of Dealing With People You Don't Agree With Or Like.

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.

Wonder Is Very Important, Because If We Never Wondered, We Would Never Get To The Point Of Asking Questions. Yet Wonder May Lead People To Write Poetry Or To Paint Pictures Or To Pray, As Well As To Ask The Kinds Of Questions About The World And Themselves That Can Be Answered By Science.

Asking Questions

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

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

Interest And Proficiency In Almost Any One Activity-swimming, Boating, Fishing, Skiing, Skating-breed Interest In Many More. Once Someone Discovers The Delight Of Mastering One Skill, However Slightly, He Is Likely To Try Out Not Just One More, But A Whole Ensemble.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

All Social Change Comes From The Passion Of Individuals.

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

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

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.

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.

Having Two Bathrooms Ruined The Capacity To Co-operate.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Must Admit That I Personally Measure Success In Terms Of The Contributions An Individual Makes To Her Or His Fellow Human Beings.

Congratulations

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Women Have An Important Contribution To Make.

Important Contributions

Anthropology... Has Always Been Highly Dependent Upon Photography... As The Use Of Still Photography - And Moving Pictures - Has Become Increasingly Essential As A Part Of Anthropological Methods, The Need For Photographers With A Disciplined Knowledge Of Anthropology And For Anthropologists With Training In Photography Has Increased. We Expect That In The Near Future Sophisticated Training In Photography Will Be A Requirement For All Anthropologists. (1962)

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.

It May Be Necessary Temporarily To Accept A Lesser Evil, But One Must Never Label A Necessary Evil As Good.

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.

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.

The Prophet Who Fails To Present A Bearable Alternative And Yet Preaches Doom Is Part Of The Trap That He Postulates.

Sister Is Probably The Most Competitive Relationship Within The Family, But Once The Sisters Are Grown, It Becomes The Strongest Relationship.

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.

Parents Feel Like Immigrants In The Country Of The Young.

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.

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.

For Art To Be Reality, The Whole Sensuous Being Must Be Caught Up In The Experience.

And When Our Baby Stirs And Struggles To Be Born It Compels Humility: What We Began Is Now Its Own.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There Are Unidentified Flying Objects. That Is, There Are A Hard Core Of Cases-perhaps 20 To 30 Percent In Different Studies-for Which There Is No Explanation. We Can Only Imagine What Purpose Lies Behind The Activities Of These Quiet, Harmlessly Cruising Objects That Time And Again Approach The Earth. The Most Likely Explanation, It Seems To Me, Is That They Are Simply Watching What We Are Up To

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.

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

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

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.

Never Depend Upon Institutions Or Government To Solve Any Problem. All Social Movements Are Founded By, Guided By, Motivated And Seen Through By The Passion Of Individuals.

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

The Suffering Of Either Sex - Of The Male Who Is Unable, Because Of The Way In Which He Was Reared, To Take The Strong Initiating Or Patriarchal Role That Is Still Demanded Of Him, Or Of The Female Who Has Been Given Too Much Freedom Of Movement As A Child To Stay Placidly Within The House As An Adult - This Suffering, This Discrepancy, This Sense Of Failure In An Enjoined Role, Is The Point Of Leverage For Social Change.

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.

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.

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 Had No Reason To Doubt That Brains Were Suitable For A Woman.

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.

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.

Everybody's Suffering Is Mine But Not Everybody's Murdering ... I Do Not Distinguish For One Moment Whether My Child Is In Danger Or A Child In Central Asia. But I Will Not Accept Responsibility For What Other People Do Because I Happen To Belong To That Nation Or That Race Or That Religion. I Do Not Believe In Guilt By Association.

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.

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.

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

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.

In The Modern World We Have Invented Ways Of Speeding Up Invention, And People's Lives Change So Fast That A Person Is Born Into One Kind Of World, Grows Up In Another, And By The Time His Children Are Growing Up, Lives In Still A Different World

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.

If They Learn Easily, They Are Penalized For Being Bored When They Have Nothing To Do; If They Excel In Some Outstanding Way, They Are Penalized As Being Conspicuously Better Than The Peer Group. The Culture Tries To Make The Child With A Gift Into A One-sided Person, To Penalize Him At Every Turn, To Cause Him Trouble In Making Friends And To Create Conditions Conducive To The Development Of A Neurosis. Neither Teachers, The Parents Of Other Children, Nor The Child Peers Will Tolerate A Wunderkind.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

The Mind Is Not Sex-typed.

I Had My Father's Mind, But He Had His Mother's Mind. Fortunately, His Mother Lived With Us And So I Early Realized That Intellectual Abilities Of The Kind I Shared With My Father And Grandmother Were Not Sex-linked.

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.

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.

[among The Arapeh... Both Father And Mother Are Held Responsible For Child Care By The Entire Community...] If One Comments Upon A Middle-aged Man As Good-looking, The People Answer: 'good-looking? Ye-e-e-s? But You Should Have Seen Him Before He Bore All Those Children'.

Love Is The Invention Of A Few High Cultures ... It Is Cultural Artifact. To Make Love The Requirement Of A Lifelong Marriage Is Exceedingly Difficult, And Only A Few People Can Achieve It. I Don't Believe In Setting Universal Standards That A Large Proportion Of People Can't Reach.

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

The Contempt For Law And The Contempt For The Human Consequences Of Lawbreaking Go From The Bottom To The Top Of American Society.

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.

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

A City Must Be A Place Where Groups Of Women And Men Are Seeking And Developing The Highest Things They Know.

What People Say, What People Do, And What They Say They Do Are Entirely Different Things.

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.

The Most Extraordinary Thing About A Really Good Teacher Is That He Or She Transcends Accepted Educational Methods. Such Methods Are Designed To Help Average Teachers Approximate The Performance Of Good Teachers.

‎ 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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

I Learned The Value Of Hard Work By Working Hard.

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.

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.

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.

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?

The Negative Cautions Of Science Are Never Popular.

No One Will Live All His Life In The World Into Which He Was Born And No One Will Die In The World In Which He Worked In His Maturity.

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.

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

If One Cannot State A Matter Clearly Enough So That Even An Intelligent Twelve-year-old Can Understand It, One Should Remain Within The Cloistered Walls Of The University And Laboratory Until One Gets A Better Grasp Of One's Subject Matter.

From A Hundred Cultures, [there Is] One Culture Which Does What No Culture Has Ever Done Before-gives A Place To Every Human Gift.

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.

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.

Keeping Even The Most Humble Talent Wrapped In A Napkin Becomes The More Reprehensible The Greater The Emergency.

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

Learned Behaviors Have Replaced The Biologically Given Ones.

Learned Behavior

Throughout History, Females Have Picked Providers For Males. Males Pick Anything.

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

The People Of One Nation Alone Cannot Save Their Own Children; Each Holds The Responsibility For The Others' Children.

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

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

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.

There Is No Greater Insight Into The Future Than Recognizing...when We Save Our Children, We Save Ourselves

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

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.

Never Doubt That A Small Group Of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens Can Change The World; Indeed, It's The Only Thing That Ever Has.

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.

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.

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.

A Small Group Of Thoughtful People Could Change The World.

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

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?

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.

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

Coming To Terms With The Rhythms Of Women's Lives Means Coming To Terms With Life Itself, Accepting The Imperatives Of The Body Rather Than The Imperatives Of An Artificial, Man-made, Perhaps Transcendentally Beautiful Civilization. Emphasis On The Male Work-rhythm Is An Emphasis On Infinite Possibilities; Emphasis On The Female Rhythms Is An Emphasis On A Defined Pattern, On Limitation.

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.

Instead Of Needing Lots Of Children, We Need High-quality Children.

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