The past empowers the present, and the sweeping footsteps leading to this present mark the pathways to the future.
—Mary Catherine Bateson
Topics: The Past
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
Topics: Imagination
The capacity to combine commitment with skepticism is essential to democracy.
—Mary Catherine Bateson
Topics: Commitment
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
Topics: Curiosity, Discovery
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
Topics: Living
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
Topics: Culture
Fear is not a good teacher. The lessons of fear are quickly forgotten.
—Mary Catherine Bateson
Topics: Fear, Teachers, Teaching
The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.
—Mary Catherine Bateson
Topics: Death
Sharing is sometimes more demanding than giving.
—Mary Catherine Bateson
Topics: Sharing, Charity, Giving
Goals too clearly defined can become blinkers.
—Mary Catherine Bateson
Topics: Goals, Goal
The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.
—Mary Catherine Bateson
Topics: Government
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