No country that permits firearms to be widely and randomly distributed among its population -- especially firearms that are capable of wounding and killing human beings -- can expect to escape violence, and a great deal of violence.
It is of very doubtful value to enlist the gifts of a woman into fields that have been defined as male; it frightens the men, unsexes the women, and muffles and distorts the contribution women could make.
It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary... to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age.
Through a grandmother's voice and hands the end of life is known at the beginning.
Everyone needs to have access both to grandparents and grandchildren in order to be a full human being.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Dear Math, please grow up and solve your own problems. I'm tired of solving them for you.
Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
I measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her fellow human beings.
And when our baby stirs and struggles to be born it compels humility: what we began is now its own.
It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.
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.
Our humanity rests upon a series of learned behaviors, woven together into patterns that are infinitely fragile and never directly inherited.
The solution to adult problems tomorrow depends on large measure upon how our children grow up today.
I do not believe in using women in combat, because females are too fierce.
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.
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.
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.
Many societies have educated their male children on the simple device of teaching them not to be women.
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.
I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.
Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have.
Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.