Mary Catherine Bateson Quotes

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• We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Graduation, Educational, Memorable

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2004). “Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal Discovery”

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• As you get up in the morning, as you make decisions, as you spend money, make friends, make commitments, you are creating a piece of art called your life.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Life, Art, Morning

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2004). “Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal Discovery”

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• The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Thinking

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• In many ways, constancy is an illusion. After all, our ancestors were immigrants, many of them moving on every few years; today we are migrants in time. Unless teachers can hold up a model of lifelong learning and adaptation, graduates are likely to find themselves trapped into obsolescence as the world changes around them. Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Life, Teacher, Moving

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2001). “Composing a Life”, p.14, Grove Press

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• Insight, I believe, refers to the depth of understanding that comes by setting experiences, yours and mine, familiar and exotic, new and old, side by side, learning by letting them speak to one another.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Believe, Diversity, Understanding

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• When parents die, all of the partings of the past are reevoked with the realization that this time they will not return.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Past, Parent, Realization

  Mary Catherine Bateson (1985). “With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson”, Pocket Books

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• What would it be like to have not only color vision but culture vision, the ability to see the multiple worlds of others.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Color, Vision, Culture

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• There are few things as toxic as a bad metaphor. You can't think without metaphors.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Thinking, Toxic, Metaphor

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• Fear is not a good teacher. The lessons of fear are quickly forgotten.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Teacher, Teaching, Lessons

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• A glad welcome to this affirmation by a group of psychologists that the self does not stop at the skin nor even with the circle of human relationships but is interwoven with the lives of trees and animals and soil; that caring for the deepest needs of persons and caring for our threatened planet are not in conflict.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Caring, Animal, Self

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• Improvisation and new learning are not private processes; they are shared with others at every age. We are called to join in a dance whose steps must be learned along the way, so it is important to attend and respond. Even in uncertainty, we are responsible for our steps.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Important, Age, Way

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• Wherever a story comes from, whether it is a familiar myth or a private memory, the retelling exemplifies the making of a connection from one pattern to another: a potential translation in which narrative becomes parable and the once upon a time comes to stand for some renascent truth. This approach applies to all the incidents of everyday life: the phrase in the newspaper, the endearing or infuriating game of a toddler, the misunderstanding at the office. Our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Memories, Thinking, Games

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• The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Change, Death, Giving

  Mary Catherine Bateson (1984). “With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson”, William Morrow & Company

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• Caring can be learned by all human beings, can be worked into the design of every life, meeting an individual need as well as a pervasive need in society.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Memorable, Caring, Design

  Mary Catherine Bateson (1990). “Composing a Life”, Plume

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• Goals too clearly defined can become blinkers.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Goal, Blinkers, Goals And Objectives

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2001). “Composing a Life”, p.6, Grove Press

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• Every loss recapitulates earlier losses, but every affirmation of identity echoes earlier moments of clarity.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Loss, Echoes, Identity

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2007). “Composing a Life”, p.180, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Improvisation can be either a last resort or an established way of evoking creativity.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Creativity, Way, Lasts

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2001). “Composing a Life”, p.4, Grove Press

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• Sharing is sometimes
  more demanding than giving.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Peace, Memorable, Knowledge

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2007). “Composing a Life”, p.111, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The past empowers the present, and the sweeping footsteps leading to this present mark the pathways to the future.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Past, Empowering, Pathways

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• The critical question about regret is whether experience led to growth and new learning. Some people seem to keep on making the same mistakes, while others at least make new ones. Regret and remorse can be either paralyzing or inspiring. [p. 199]

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Regret, Mistake, People

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• Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Inspirational, Memorable, Stopping

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2001). “Composing a Life”, p.14, Grove Press

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• Human beings do not eat nutrients, they eat food.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Food, Cooking, Culinary

  Mary Catherine Bateson (1985). “With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson”, Pocket Books

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• The family is changing not disappearing. We have to broaden our understanding of it, look for the new metaphors.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Cute, Understanding, Looks

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• The Christian tradition was passed on to me as a great rich mixture, a bouillabaisse of human imagination and wonder brewed from the richness of individual lives.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Christian, Imagination, Religion

  Mary Catherine Bateson (1985). “With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson”, Pocket Books

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• Solutions to problems often depend upon how they're defined.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Problem, Defined, Depends

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