Margaret Mead

"Peace is not just the absence of war."

"To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival."

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

"Science brings absolute knowledge; art brings absolute doubt."

"It is utterly false and cruelly misleading to put teens into the same category as adults."

"Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed."

"Partnership and friendship, not domination and submission, must be the basis of marriage."

"The role of the teacher remains the highest calling of a free people."

"The institution of the family is accountable for a large share of the suffering which exists in the world."

"Women are the first environment."

"I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse."

"Coming of age in America means coming of age in a world dominated by peer groups."

"Our education system is a mess."

"The generation that destroyed so much war material could have created things equally fine."

"Human nature is almost unbelievably malleable, responding accurately and contrastingly to contrasting cultural conditions."

"The individual who adapts to circumstances has already lost."

"Adolescence is not primarily a sexual phenomenon. It is a social phenomenon."

"The capacity for aesthetic experience is a defining feature of being human."

"We learn not because we want to learn, but because we want to feel that we have learned."

"The necessity to carry the young is a physiological fact, but the methods of carrying them are culturally determined."

"Every culture is precious."

"As the Balinese say, we do not feel angry at him, we feel angry at the situation."

"It took millions of years to produce the life that now inhabits the world, and use that same product to destroy itself."

"We need to expand the circle of our love to include the whole of humanity."

"The human mind, I believe, cares about ideas almost as much as about food."

"This generation may be the last that remembers a time before computers."

"Technology is not good or evil; it is a reflection of who we are."

"In American culture, we seem to have lost the ability to sit and do nothing."

"Warfare is only an invention—not a biological necessity."

"I learned the important principle of allowing children to grow in their own ways."