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Human beings do not eat nutrients, they eat food.

Mary Catherine Bateson

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

Care Design Human Learning Need Society Work
The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Human Learning Metaphor Species Story Thinking
The family is changing not disappearing. We have to broaden our understanding of it, look for the new metaphors.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Change Family Metaphor Understand
Improvisation can be either a last resort or an established way of evoking creativity.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Creativity Establishment Improvisation Way
The past empowers the present, and the sweeping footsteps leading to this present mark the pathways to the future.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Empowerment Future Leadership Present
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.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Criticism Growth Mistake Oneself Question Regret
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

Greatness Imagination Live Tradition
There are few things as toxic as a bad metaphor. You can’t think without metaphors.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Bad Metaphor Toxic Yourself
Learning to savor the vertigo of doing without answers or making do with fragmentary ones opens up the pleasures of recognizing and playing with patterns, finding coherence within complexity, sharing within multiplicity.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Answer Finding Fragment Learning Pattern Pleasure Share
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

Character Entertainment Experience Life Positive Repetition
Often continuity is visible only in retrospect.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Philosophy Retrospect Visible
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

Commitment Decision Life Morning People Pieces Yourself
We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Known Learning Willing
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

Dance Important Improvisation Join Learning Ourselves Responsible Step
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

Goodness Life Place Remain Willing
Most higher education is devoted to affirming the traditions and origins of an existing elite and transmitting them to new members.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Affirmation Education Existing Member Tradition

Human beings do not eat nutrients, they eat food.

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Human beings do not eat nutrients, they eat food.

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