Talk:Margaret Mead

Disputed

• Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.
  • Attributed to "Someone once said" in: Robert Lofton Hudson (1982) Now That Our Kids Have Children. p.117

• I have a respect for manners as such, they are a way of dealing with people you don't agree with or like.
  • Mentioned without source in Bill Stumpf (1998) The ice palace that melted away: restoring civility and other lost virtues to everyday life. p.85

• Old age is like flying through a storm. Once you're aboard, there's nothing you can do.
  • Attributed to the late Israeli prime minister Golda Meier in: Ronda Beaman (2006) You're Only Young Twice: 10 Do-Overs to Reawaken Your Spirit. p.99

• When our baby stirs and struggles to be born it compels humility: what we began is now its own.
  • Attributed to Anne Ridler in multiple sources

Unsourced

• I was wise enough to never grow up while fooling most people into believing I had.

• I've been married three times — and each time I married the right person.

You are absolutely unique

I think the quote "Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else." is misattributed. It appears in the 1979 book 1,001 logical laws, accurate axioms, profound principles, trusty truisms, homey homilies, colorful corollaries, quotable quotes, and rambunctious ruminations for all walks of life (by John Peers) as "Meade's Maxim"—Meade with an "e" at the end and no Margaret in front. I checked this book in the library to make sure I wasn't missing something in snippet view.

The earliest attribution to Margaret Mead that I find on GB is in the 2001 book The other 90% by Robert K. Cooper, which cites the book 1,001 logical laws. This looks like a simple error. —KHirsch 03:28, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Never doubt

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

There's no known primary source for this, but it has never been attributed to anyone else. The Yale Book of Quotations says "Attributed in the Christian Science Monitor, 1 June 1989." The earliest attribution that I've found is Earth at omega: passage to planetization (1982) by Donald Keys, p. 79. —KHirsch 03:52, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that info :)

Possibly you saw, that I asked about this recently at Wikiquote:Village pump#Is a book-of-quotations alone a reliable source? Your sources, and the link I'd found, should be added to the list here. I'll try in a few weeks, once I have some time to research the styleguide here, if nobody else beats me to it... :) -- Quiddity 18:35, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

That's good info. We should include the information from that faq and/or something from her daughter. —KHirsch 01:13, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Human diversity is a resource, not a handicap

I found this quote on de:w:Margaret Mead, and it struck me as something she could plausibly have written. However, a web search only produces quotations such as here, which are suggestive but in no way conclusive. She would certainly have emphatically agreed with the sentiment expressed in this sentence, but is anything like it found in her writings? I cannot find any more specific attribution on the web. --Florian Blaschke 16:50, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've found a remarkably similar passage in Bakunin – so similar that it might, indeed, be the real source of the quotation, only tightened and misattributed:

"But this diversity is hardly an evil. On the contrary, as the German philosopher Feuerbach rightly observed, it is a resource of the human race."

See here. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:03, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Orthographical/Grammatical/Syntax Correction

There seem to be several errors in this article such as the passage beginning with "Opposing the circle of closed affection...", as well as "Every human society of which we have ally record" (any record?), inter alia. Would someone with access to the source text make the appropriate corrections?—This unsigned comment is by 96.23.128.31 (talk • contribs) .

Thanks for your feedback. In the first quote some more text was added, and in the second quote a correction is made (which was not in the online version). -- Mdd (talk) 12:03, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Never doubt that a small group ... can change the world.

I see this text, "Never doubt that a small group ... can change the world" in both the main article and in "Disputed". In the main article, it is quoted from "Kabir, Hajara Muhammad (2010). Northern women development." Can someone provide documentation with a date no later than 1978 when Meade apparently said or wrote this or something close?

If yes, the quote in the main body of this page needs to cite that. Otherwise, it should be removed from the main body of this article and left in "Disputed" [maybe adding Muhammad (2010) to the sources cited there]. DavidMCEddy (talk) 11:34, 7 June 2024 (UTC)