Fluidity and discontinuity are central to the reality in which we live.
MARY CATHERINE BATESONThe 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.
More Mary Catherine Bateson Quotes
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The family is changing not disappearing. We have to broaden our understanding of it, look for the new metaphors.
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The past empowers the present, and the sweeping footsteps leading to this present mark the pathways to the future.
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Goals too clearly defined can become blinkers.
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We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.
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The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.
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Human beings tend to regard the conventions of their own societies as natural, often as sacred.
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There are few things as toxic as a bad metaphor. You can’t think without metaphors.
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The capacity to combine commitment with skepticism is essential to democracy.
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A disgruntled reflection on my own life as a sort of desperate improvisation in which I was constantly trying to make something coherent from conflicting elements to fit rapidly changing settings.
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Fear is not a good teacher. The lessons of fear are quickly forgotten.
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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.
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Solutions to problems often depend upon how they’re defined.
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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.
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Every loss recapitulates earlier losses, but every affirmation of identity echoes earlier moments of clarity.
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Improvisation can be either a last resort or an established way of evoking creativity.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON