Language commonly stresses only one side of any interaction.
- Gregory Bateson
Communication, Side, Stresses
But epistemology is always and inevitably personal. The point of the probe is always in the heart of the explorer: What is my answer to the question of the nature of knowing?
- Gregory Bateson
Nature, Question, Always, Inevitably
Official education was telling people almost nothing of the nature of all those things on the seashores, and in the redwood forests, in the deserts and in the plains.
- Gregory Bateson
Education, Telling, Almost, Forests
There is a strong tendency in explanatory prose to invoke quantities of tension, energy, and whatnot to explain the genesis of pattern. I believe that all such explanations are inappropriate or wrong.
- Gregory Bateson
Strong, Explain, Prose, Invoke
It is of first-class importance that our answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx should be in step with how we conduct our civilisation, and this should in turn be in step with the actual workings of living systems.
- Gregory Bateson
Living, Importance, Actual, Civilisation
It is, I claim, nonsense to say that it does not matter which individual man acted as the nucleus for the change. It is precisely this that makes history unpredictable into the future.
- Gregory Bateson
Change, Individual, Which, Claim
If we pursue this matter further, we shall be told that the stable object is unchanging under the impact or stress of some particular external or internal variable or, perhaps, that it resists the passage of time.
- Gregory Bateson
Stress, Some, Internal, External
To think straight, it is advisable to expect all qualities and attributes, adjectives, and so on to refer to at least two sets of interactions in time.
- Gregory Bateson
Think, Sets, Advisable, Refer
Rather, for all objects and experiences, there is a quantity that has optimum value. Above that quantity, the variable becomes toxic. To fall below that value is to be deprived.
- Gregory Bateson
Toxic, Quantity, Rather, Variable
Numbers are the product of counting. Quantities are the product of measurement. This means that numbers can conceivably be accurate because there is a discontinuity between each integer and the next.
- Gregory Bateson
Next, Counting, Means, Measurement
A major difficulty is that the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx is partly a product of the answers that we already have given to the riddle in its various forms.
- Gregory Bateson
Difficulty, Sphinx, Given, Forms
Interesting phenomena occur when two or more rhythmic patterns are combined, and these phenomena illustrate very aptly the enrichment of information that occurs when one description is combined with another.
- Gregory Bateson
More, Very, Occur, Phenomena
Members of weakly religious families get, of course, no religious training from any source outside the family.
- Gregory Bateson
Outside, Get, Religious, Members
It is to the Riddle of the Sphinx that I have devoted fifty years of professional life as an anthropologist.
- Gregory Bateson
Professional Life, Sphinx, Riddle
In the transmission of human culture, people always attempt to replicate, to pass on to the next generation the skills and values of the parents, but the attempt always fails because cultural transmission is geared to learning, not DNA.
- Gregory Bateson
Generation, Next, Always, Geared
It is impossible, in principle, to explain any pattern by invoking a single quantity.
- Gregory Bateson
Single, Explain, Principle, Invoking
We do not know enough about how the present will lead into the future.
- Gregory Bateson
Future, Will, How, Present
Synaptic summation is the technical term used in neurophysiology for those instances in which some neuron C is fired only by a combination of neurons A and B.
- Gregory Bateson
Some, Fired, Which, Combination
Logic is a poor model of cause and effect.
- Gregory Bateson
Poor, Effect, Cause, Logic
Logic can often be reversed, but the effect does not precede the cause.
- Gregory Bateson
Effect, Does, Precede, Logic
All experience is subjective.
- Gregory Bateson
Experience, Subjective
Money is always transitively valued. More money is supposedly always better than less money.
- Gregory Bateson
Money, Better, Always, Supposedly
Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions.
- Gregory Bateson
Science, Sleep, Based, Commerce
Number is different from quantity.
- Gregory Bateson
Different, Number, Quantity
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