Mary Catherine Bateson Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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”

  52 Copy quote

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

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Thinking

  23 Copy quote

• 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

  17 Copy quote

• 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”

  15 Copy quote

• 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

  23 Copy quote

• Human beings tend to regard the conventions of their own societies as natural, often as sacred.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Sacred, Natural, Conventions

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2001). “Composing a Life”, p.57, Grove Press

  3 Copy quote

• ... as we age we have not only to readdress earlier developmental crises but also somehow to find the way to three affirmations that may seem to conflict. ... We have to affirm our own life. We have to affirm our own death. And we have to affirm love, both given and received.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Love, Age, Three

  3 Copy quote

• 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

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  19 Copy quote

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

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Teacher, Teaching, Lessons

  15 Copy quote

• 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

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  50 Copy quote

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

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Problem, Defined, Depends

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  15 Copy quote

• 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

  14 Copy quote

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

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Thinking, Toxic, Metaphor

  17 Copy quote

• 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.

  8 Copy quote

• Most higher education is devoted to affirming the traditions and origins of an existing elite and transmitting them to new members.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Peace, History, Tradition

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2001). “Composing a Life”, p.71, Grove Press

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  11 Copy quote

• Rarely is it possible to study all of the instructions to a game before beginning to play, or to memorize the manual before turning on the computer. The excitement of improvisation lies not only in the risk of being involved but in the new ideas, as heady as the adrenaline of performance, that seems to come from nowhere.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Lying, Games, Play

  3 Copy quote

• I had repeatedly accepted inappropriate burdens, stepping in to do what needed to be done. In retrospect, I think I carried them well, but the cost was that I was chronically overloaded, weary, and short of time for politicking, smoothing ruffled feathers, and simply resting.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Thinking, Cost, Done

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2001). “Composing a Life”, p.205, Grove Press

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  9 Copy quote

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