Gregory Bateson Quotes

Quotes about:

• The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.

  Gregory Bateson

  Nature, Thinking, Differences

  "Business needs to learn to see separate challenges as part of the whole" by Giles Hutchins, www.theguardian.com. April 5, 2012.

  122 Copy quote

• Wisdom is the intelligence of the system as a whole.

  Gregory Bateson

  Whole

  50 Copy quote

• Without context words and actions have no meaning at all

  Gregory Bateson

  Action, Words And Actions

  Gregory Bateson, Carol Wilder-Mott, John H. Weakland, International Communication Association, Speech Communication Association (1981). “Rigor & imagination: essays from the legacy of Gregory Bateson”, Praeger Publishers

  64 Copy quote

• The meaning of your communication is the response you get.

  Gregory Bateson

  Communication, Response

  94 Copy quote

• A man walking is never in balance, but always correcting for imbalance.

  Gregory Bateson

  Men, Balance, Walking

  18 Copy quote

• The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself.

  Gregory Bateson

  Winning, Environment, Creatures

  72 Copy quote

• We can never be quite clear whether we are referring to the world as it is or to the world as we see it.

  Gregory Bateson

  World, Clear, Referring

  Jurgen Ruesch, Gregory Bateson (2006). “Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry”, p.238, Transaction Publishers

  87 Copy quote

• The only way out is spiritual, intellectual, and emotional revolution in which, finally, we learn to experience first hand the interloping connections between person and person, organism and organism, action and consequence.

  Gregory Bateson

  Spiritual, Emotional, Hands

  76 Copy quote

• It takes two to know one.

  Gregory Bateson

  Two, Knows

  46 Copy quote

• Yes, metaphor. That's how the whole fabric of mental interconnections holds together. Metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive.

  Gregory Bateson

  Together, Fabric, Alive

  82 Copy quote

• Information is a difference that makes a difference.

  Gregory Bateson

  Differences, Making A Difference, Information

  1984 Quoted in Scientific American, no.41, Sep.

  71 Copy quote

• Somebody was saying to Picasso that he ought to make pictures of things the way they are-objective pictures. He mumbled that he wasn't quite sure what that would be. The person who was bullying him produced a photograph of his wife from his wallet and said, "There, you see, that is a picture of how she really is." Picasso looked at it and said, "She is rather small, isn't she? And flat?"

  Gregory Bateson

  Bullying, Wife, Perspective

  46 Copy quote

• Play is the establishment and exploration of relationship.

  Gregory Bateson

  Play, Exploration, Establishment

  16 Copy quote

• What is the pattern that connects the crab to the lobster and the primrose to the orchid, and all of them to me, and me to you?

  Gregory Bateson

  Orchids, Lobster, Patterns

  73 Copy quote

• What is true is that the idea of power corrupts. Power corrupts most rapidly those who believe in it, and it is they who will want it most. Obviously, our democratic system tends to give power to those who hunger for it and gives every opportunity to those who don't want power to avoid getting it. Not a very satisfactory arrangement if power corrupts those who believe in it and want it.

  Gregory Bateson

  Believe, Opportunity, Ideas

  Gregory Bateson (1972). “Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology”, p.494, University of Chicago Press

  65 Copy quote

• The world is indeed only a small tide pool; disturb one part and the rest is threatened.

  Gregory Bateson

  World, Tides, Pool

  16 Copy quote

• If a man achieves or suffers change in premises which are deeply embedded in his mind, he will surely find that the results of that change will ramify throughout his whole universe.

  Gregory Bateson

  Men, Mind, Suffering

  Gregory Bateson (1972). “Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology”, p.336, University of Chicago Press

  70 Copy quote

• There are times when I catch myself believing that there is such a thing as something; which is separate from something else.

  Gregory Bateson

  Believe

  57 Copy quote

• After mastery comes artistry and not before.

  Gregory Bateson

  Mastery, Artistry

  14 Copy quote

• Pathology is a relatively easy thing to discuss, health is very difficult. This, of course, is one of the reasons why there is such a thing as the sacred, and why the sacred is difficult to talk about, because the sacred is peculiarly related to the healthy. One does not like to disturb the sacred, for in general, to talk about something changes it, and perhaps will turn it into a pathology.

  Gregory Bateson

  Healthy, Religion, Doe

  48 Copy quote

• The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of
  course you never do.

  Gregory Bateson

  Want, Pathology, Courses

  37 Copy quote

• No organism can afford to be conscious of matters with which it could deal at unconscious levels.

  Gregory Bateson

  Levels, Matter, Conscious

  Gregory Bateson (1972). “Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology”, p.143, University of Chicago Press

  6 Copy quote

• All experience is subjective.

  Gregory Bateson

  Subjectivity, Subjective

  Gregory Bateson (1972). “Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology”, p.47, University of Chicago Press

  14 Copy quote

• Creative thought must always contain a random component.

  Gregory Bateson

  Creative, Creative Thought, Components

  13 Copy quote

• Whenever we pride ourselves upon finding a newer, stricter way of thought or exposition … we lose something of the ability to think new thoughts. And equally, of course, whenever we rebel against the sterile rigidity of formal thought and exposition and let our ideas run wild, we likewise lose. As I see it, the advances in scientific thought come from a combination of lose and strict thinking, and this combination is the most precious tool of science.

  Gregory Bateson

  Running, Pride, Thinking

  "Culture Contact and Schismogenesis". "MAN" Journal, Vol. 35, December, 1935.

  25 Copy quote

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