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.

About Margaret Mead

Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist, author and speaker, who appeared frequently in the mass media during the mid-twentieth century.

More quotations from Margaret Mead

Women want mediocre men, and men are working hard to become as mediocre as possible.

—Margaret Mead

women men

We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.

—Margaret Mead

society environment

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.

—Margaret Mead

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

—Margaret Mead

politics change social change community

The contempt for law and the contempt for the human consequence of lawbreaking go from the bottom to the top of American society.

—Margaret Mead

politics USA laws consequences

More quotations tagged with “community”

One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress.

—Jean Vanier

strength helping community welcome distress

To build community requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination.

—Bell Hooks

socialization community domination

For the Dargara people, death results in simply a different form of belonging to the community. It is a lesson . . . that change is the norm, that the world is defined by eternal cycles of decline and regeneration. . . . Death is not a separation but a different form of communion, a higher form of connectedness . . . providing an opportunity for even greater service.

—Malidoma Somé

death connection community belonging regeneration reincarnation communion

As one reads history . . . one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalized by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.

—Oscar Wilde

history crime cruelty punishment community

God creates men, but they choose each other.

—Niccolo Machiavelli

God creation community