Gregory Bateson

Multiple descriptions are better than one.

— Gregory Bateson

Logic is a poor model of cause and effect.

— Gregory Bateson

Number is different from quantity.

— Gregory Bateson

It takes two to know one.

— Gregory Bateson

There are no monotone "values" in biology.

— Gregory Bateson

After mastery comes artistry and not before.

— Gregory Bateson

Science probes; it does not prove.

— Gregory Bateson

Life and 'Mind' are systemic processes.

— Gregory Bateson

The map is not the territory (coined by Alfred Korzybski), and the name is not the thing named.

— Gregory Bateson

Money is always transitively valued. More money is supposedly always better than less money.

— Gregory Bateson

The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of course you never do.

— Gregory Bateson

The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself.

— Gregory Bateson

The world is indeed only a small tide pool; disturb one part and the rest is threatened.

— Gregory Bateson

A man walking is never in balance, but always correcting for imbalance.

— Gregory Bateson

Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions.

— Gregory Bateson

Logic cannot model causal systems, and paradox is generated when time is ignored [as in logic].

— Gregory Bateson

Some tools of thought are so blunt that they are almost useless; others are so sharp that they are dangerous. But the…

— Gregory Bateson

The wise legislator will only rarely initiate a new rule of behaviour; more usually he will confine himself to affirming in law…

— Gregory Bateson

What is the pattern that connects the crab to the lobster and the primrose to the orchid, and all of them to…

— Gregory Bateson

If a man achieves or suffers change in premises which are deeply embedded in his mind, he will surely find that the…

— Gregory Bateson

Surrender to alcohol intoxication provides a partial and subjective shortcut to a more correct state of mind.

— Gregory Bateson

The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.

— Gregory Bateson

There are times when I catch myself believing that there is such a thing as something; which is separate from something else.

— Gregory Bateson

Synaptic summation is the technical term used in neurophysiology for those instances in which some neuron C is fired only by a…

— Gregory Bateson

I shall argue that the problem of grace is fundamentally a problem of integration and what is to be integrated is the…

— Gregory Bateson

If we pursue this matter further, we shall be told that the stable object is unchanging under the impact or stress of…

— Gregory Bateson

What we mean by information - the elementary unit of information - is a difference which makes a difference, and it is…

— Gregory Bateson

Somebody was saying to Picasso that he ought to make pictures of things the way they are-objective pictures. He mumbled that he…

— Gregory Bateson

The only way out is spiritual, intellectual, and emotional revolution in which, finally, we learn to experience first hand the interloping connections…

— Gregory Bateson

But the myth of power is, of course, a very powerful myth, and probably most people in this world more or less…

— Gregory Bateson

Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions. It differs, however, from most other branches of human…

— Gregory Bateson

In the transmission of human culture, people always attempt to replicate, to pass on to the next generation the skills and values…

— Gregory Bateson

“Earlier fundamental work of Whitehead, Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Whorf, etc., as well as my own attempt to use this earlier thinking as…

— Gregory Bateson

Science sometimes improves hypotheses and sometimes disproves them. But proof would be another matter and perhaps never occurs except in the realms…

— Gregory Bateson

Our initial sensory data are always "first derivatives," statements about differences which exist among external objects or statements about changes which occur…

— Gregory Bateson

Schizophrenia --its nature, etiology, and the kind of therapy to use for it--remains one of the most puzzling of the mental illnesses.…

— Gregory Bateson

Whenever we pride ourselves upon finding a newer, stricter way of thought or exposition Â… we lose something of the ability to…

— Gregory Bateson

No organism can afford to be conscious of matters with which it could deal at unconscious levels. Broadly, we can afford to…

— Gregory Bateson

Numbers are the product of counting. Quantities are the product of measurement. This means that numbers can conceivably be accurate because there…

— Gregory Bateson

Women watched for the spectacular performances of the men, and there can be no reasonable doubt that the presence of an audience…

— Gregory Bateson