It is easier to change a man's religion than to change his diet.
Interpretation
Changing beliefs is often simpler than altering eating habits.
This quote by Margaret Mead suggests that deeply ingrained habits, such as those surrounding diet, are more resistant to change than personal beliefs or faith. It highlights the difficulty of modifying behaviors related to food, which are often tied to culture, sentiment, and identity, compared to the relative ease with which someone might adopt new religious or philosophical views.
In practice
In a health seminar discussing lifestyle changes, this quote can illustrate the challenge of altering diet for better health.
Earth Day is the first holy day which transcends all national borders, yet preserves all geographical integrities, spans mountains and oceans and time belts, and yet brings people all over the world into one resonating accord, is devoted to the preservation of the harmony in nature and yet draws upon the triumphs of technology, the measurement of time, and instantaneous communication through space.
Prayer does not use up artificial energy, doesn't burn up any fossil fuel, doesn't pollute. Neither does song, neither does love, neither does the dance.
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.
We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.
EARTH DAY uses one of humanity's great discoveries, the discovery of anniversaries by which, throughout time, human beings have kept their sorrows and their joys, their victories, their revelations and their obligations alive, for re-celebration and re-dedication another year, another decade, another century, another eon.
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.
The purpose of the gospel is to transform common creatures into celestial citizens, and that requires change.
People can change their own lives, provided they have the right kind of institutional support. They're not asking for charity, charity is no solution to poverty. Poverty is the creation of opportunities like everybody else has, not the poor people, so bring them to the poor people, so that they can change their lives.
In these times, the hardest task for social or political activists is to find a way to get people to wonder again about what we all believe is true. The challenge is to sow doubt.
You don't have to be one of those people that accepts things as they are. Every day, take responsibility for changing them right where you are.
There are more black men incarcerated today than there were slaves in 1850.
I hope something happens. I'm restless as the devil and have a horror of getting fat or falling in love and growing domestic.
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