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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.

-Margaret Mead

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If They Learn Easily,

Margaret Mead

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

Women Have An Important Contribution To Make.

Important Contributions

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Fathers Are Biological Necessities, But Social Accidents.

Margaret Mead Was Both A Student Of Civilization And An Exemplar Of It. To A Public Of Millions, She Brought The Central Insight Of Cultural Anthropology: That Varying Cultural Patterns Express An Underlying Human Unity. She Mastered Her Discipline, But She Also Transcended It. Intrepid, Independent, Plain Spoken, Fearless, She Remains A Model For The Young And A Teacher From Whom All May Learn.

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.

We Know Of No Culture That Has Said, Articulately, That There Is No Difference Between Men And Women Except In The Way They Contribute To The Creation Of The Next Generation.

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

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.

Women Want Mediocre Men, And Men Are Working To Be As Mediocre As Possible.

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

An Occupation That Has No Basis In Sex-determined Gifts Can Now Recruit Its Ranks From Twice As Many Potential Artists.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Britons Put Up With, Americans Fix, Canadians Cope

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Mothers Are A Biological Necessity; Fathers Are A Social Invention

Home, I Learned, Can Be Anywhere You Make It. Home Is Also The Place To Which You Come Back Again And Again.

Again And Again

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

A Society Which Is Clamouring For Choice, Which Is Filled With Many Articulate Groups, Each Urging Its Own Brand Of Salvation, Its Own Variety Of Economic Philosophy, Will Give Each New Generation No Peace Until All Have Chosen Or Gone Under, Unable To Bear The Conditions Of Choice.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

We — Mankind — Stand At The Center Of An Evolutionary Crisis, With A New Evolutionary Device — Our Consciousness Of The Crisis — As Our Unique Contribution.

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

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 Learned The Value Of Hard Work By Working Hard.

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

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.

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

Cynicism Is The Other Thing That Goes With Sentimentality.

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.

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

Congratulations

Learned Behaviors Have Replaced The Biologically Given Ones.

Learned Behavior

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

I Think Rigid Heterosexuality Is A Perversion Of Nature.

Heterosexuality Is

Heterosexuality

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Leisure And The Cultivation Of Human Capacities Are Inextricably Interdependent.

The Negative Cautions Of Science Are Never Popular.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

Parents Feel Like Immigrants In The Country Of The 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.

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

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.

If Sports Are The Toy Department Of Life, Then The Nfl Is The Fao Schwartz Of Sports.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

There Is No Greater Power In The World Than The Zest Of A Postmenopausal Woman.

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)

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Mind Is Not Sex-typed.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Our Human Situation No Longer Permits Us To Make Armed Dichotomies Between Those Who Are Good And Those Who Are Evil, Those Who Are Right And Those Who Are Wrong. The First Blow Dealt To The Enemy's Children Will Sign The Death Warrant Of Our Own.

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.

[partly As A Consequence Of Male Authority] Prestige Value Always Attaches To The Activities Of Men.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

All Of Us Who Grew Up Before World War Ii Are Immigrants In Time, Immigrants From An Earlier World, Living In An Age Essentially Different From Anything We Knew Before.

Having Two Bathrooms Ruined The Capacity To Co-operate.

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.

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.

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

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.

All Social Change Comes From The Passion Of Individuals.

Manners, Really Good Ones, Make It Possible To Live With Almost Anyone, Gracefully And Pleasantly.

An Education Not Founded On Art Will Never Succeed.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Sooner Or Later

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

The City As A Center Where, Any Day In Any Year, There May Be A Fresh Encounter With A New Talent, A Keen Mind Or A Gifted Specialist-this Is Essential To The Life Of A Country. To Play This Role In Our Lives A City Must Have A Soul-a University, A Great Art Or Music School, A Cathedral Or A Great Mosque Or Temple, A Great Laboratory Or Scientific Center, As Well As The Libraries And Museums And Galleries That Bring Past And Present Together. A City Must Be A Place Where Groups Of Women And Men Are Seeking And Developing The Highest Things They Know.

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.

A Small Group Of Thoughtful People Could Change The World.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

No Matter How Many Communes Anybody Invents, The Family Always Creeps Back.

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.

Standardized Personality Differences Between The Sexes Are Of This Order, Cultural Creations To Which Each Generation, Male And Female, Is Trained To Conform.

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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Werner Heisenberg

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