One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night.
What we lack is not so much leisure to do as time to reflect and time to feel. What we seldom “take” is time to experience the things that have happened, the things that are happening, the things that are still ahead of us.
Learned behaviors have replaced the biologically given ones.
We must recognize that beneath the superficial classifications of sex and race the same potentialities exist, recurring generation after generation, only to perish because society has no place for them.
The most intractable problem today is not pollution or technology or war; but the lack of belief that the future is very much in the hands of the individual.
If one cannot state a matter clearly enough so that even an intelligent twelve-year-old can understand it, one should remain within the cloistered walls of the university and laboratory until one gets a better grasp of one’s subject matter.
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.
Many societies have educated their male children on the simple device of teaching them not to be women.
Our human situation no longer permits us to make armed dichotomies between those who are good and those who are evil, those who are right and those who are wrong. The first blow dealt to the enemy’s children will sign the death warrant of our own.
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.
Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.
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.
Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess.
An ideal culture is one that makes a place for every human gift.
The time has come, I think, when we must recognize bisexuality as a normal form of human behavior.
Of course we need children! Adults need children in their lives to listen to and care for, to keep their imagination fresh and their hearts young and to make the future a reality for which they are willing to work.
There is no more creative force in the world than the menopausal woman with zest.
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world.
It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly.
Every time we liberate a woman, we liberate a man.