Home > Author > Mary Catherine Bateson
1 " An encounter with other cultures can lead to openness only if you can suspend the assumption of superiority, not seeing new worlds to conquer, but new worlds to respect. "
― Mary Catherine Bateson , Composing a Life
2 " Real winners in a rapidly changing world will be those who are open to alternatives and able to respect and value those who are different. "
3 " 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 , Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom
4 " ... 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. [p. 88] "
5 " Since few people arrive at retirement with an understanding that this transition will involve a rethinking of who they are, an interim pattern has emerged, in which travel offers a way of fulfilling deferred daydreams of adventure while the next stage takes shape. [p. 31] "
6 " It's all about being in control of myself as an older woman who lives alone, and it's all about how I am going to do what I have to do to be as strong as I can be and be confident that I can do what I need to do as an older person. [p. 62] "
7 " Moving is both liberating and debilitating. Undertaken too late, it is a very stressful process, one that sometimes seems to catapult people into frail old age, and undertaken too soon, it may preempt other possibilities. [p. 38] "
8 " Sorting gets harder as time goes on--it requires a sort of ruthless decisiveness, while indecision results in endless dithering. Five moves, they say, equal a fire. But those who haven't moved may begin to need a fire. [p. 38] "
9 " After all, most of us have lived lives based on commitments made without any way of knowing where they would lead. The uncertainty is an essential element in commitment, the acceptance of consequences an essential element in fidelity. [p. 80] "
10 " As people grow older, some of the ways they have contributed in the past may no longer be possible, but the challenge to society is not only to provide help and care where these are needed but also to offer the opportunity to contribute and care for others [p. 8] "
11 " 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
12 " The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it. "
13 " 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. "
14 " We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn. "
15 " 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 , Peripheral Visions: Learning Along the Way
16 " Self-care should include the cold shower as well as the scented tub. "
17 " Physical things are eloquent tokens of ideas,enriched by new meanings through time even when the tokens are no more than evanescent paper representations. "
18 " If your opinions and commitments appear to change from year to year or decade to decade, what are the more abstract underlying convictions that have held steady, that might never have become visible without the surface variation? "
19 " HUMAN BEINGS TEND to regard the conventions of their own societies as natural, often as sacred. One of the great steps forward in history was learning to regard those who spoke odd-sounding languages and had different smells and habits as fully human, as similar to oneself. The next step from this realization, the step which we have still not fully made, is the willingness to question and purposefully alter one’s own conditions and habits, to learn by observing others. If a particular arrangement is not necessary, it might be possible to choose to change it. "
20 " 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. "
