Anthropologist Margaret Mead listened closely to cultures, families, and the everyday choices of ordinary people. Her words invite us to see the world with clear eyes, steady courage, and a generous sense of humor. Here are some of her most memorable reflections on women, community, change, and the fragile beauty of our shared planet.

“I had no reason to doubt that brains were suitable for a woman, 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.”

You just have to learn not to care about the dust mites under the beds.

I think extreme heterosexuality is a perversion.

Because of their age-long training in human relations — for that is what feminine intuition really is — women have a special contribution to make to any group enterprise.

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

A city must be a place where groups of women and men are seeking and developing the highest things they know.

The negative cautions of science are never popular. If the experimentalist would not commit himself, the social philosopher, the preacher, and the pedagogue try the harder to give a short-cut answer.

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.

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

Even though the ship may go down, the journey goes on.

No matter how many communes anybody invents, the family always creeps back.

Never ask your readers what they want, because then you’ll give it to them, and that will be entertainment. Ask yourself what you want, and then you will delight your readers. ~ The Utne Reader, 1992