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 BATESONAs 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.
More Mary Catherine Bateson Quotes
-
-
Every loss recapitulates earlier losses, but every affirmation of identity echoes earlier moments of clarity.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON -
Worlds can be found by a child and an adult bending down and looking together under the grass stems or at the skittering crabs in a tidal pool.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON -
Monotony and repetition are characteristic of many parts of life, but these do not become sources of conscious discomfort until novelty and entertainment are built up as positive experiences.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON -
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 -
Often continuity is visible only in retrospect.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON -
Improvisation can be either a last resort or an established way of evoking creativity.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON -
The family is changing not disappearing. We have to broaden our understanding of it, look for the new metaphors.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON -
A suprising number of physicians manage to continue to care about persons even after the rigors of medical training.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON -
The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON -
Most higher education is devoted to affirming the traditions and origins of an existing elite and transmitting them to new members.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON -
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 -
Human beings tend to regard the conventions of their own societies as natural, often as sacred.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON -
Sharing is sometimes more demanding than giving.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON -
The past empowers the present, and the sweeping footsteps leading to this present mark the pathways to the future.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON -
The capacity to combine commitment with skepticism is essential to democracy.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON