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Mary Catherine Bateson
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“When parents die, all of the partings of the past are reevoked with the realization that this time they will not return ...”
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“The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.”
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“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.”
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“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 ...”
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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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“Fear is not a good teacher. The lessons of fear are quickly forgotten.”
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“There are few things as toxic as a bad metaphor. You can't think without metaphors.”
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“Jazz exemplifies artistic activity that is at once individual and communal, performance that is both repetitive and innovative, each participant sometimes providing background support and sometimes flying free.”
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“Improvisation can be either a last resort or an established way of evoking creativity.”
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“In many ways, constancy is an illusion ... 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.”
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“Goals too clearly defined can become blinkers.”
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“Fluidity and discontinuity are central to the reality in which we live.”
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“Human beings tend to regard the conventions of their own societies as natural, often as sacred.”
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“Most higher education is devoted to affirming the traditions and origins of an existing elite and transmitting them to new members.”
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“Sharing is sometimes more demanding than giving.”
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“The capacity to combine commitment with skepticism is essential to democracy.”
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“I had repeatedly accepted inappropriate burdens, stepping in to do what needed to be done. In retrospect, I think I carried them well, but the cost was that I was chronically overloaded, weary, and short of time for politicking, smoothing ruffled feathers, and simply resting.”
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“Often continuity is visible only in retrospect.”
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“Every loss recapitulates earlier losses, but every affirmation of identity echoes earlier moments of clarity.”
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“Solutions to problems often depend upon how they're defined.”
Mary Catherine Bateson, U.S. cultural anthropologist, writer
(1939)
MCB is the daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson.