Quotes by Mary Catherine Bateson

“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.”

“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.”

“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 remors...”

“... 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 hav...”

“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 fulfillin...”

“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 wha...”

“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 pree...”

“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 ...”

“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 consequen...”

“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...”

“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.”

“Fear is not a good teacher. The lessons of fear are quickly forgotten.”

“The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.”

“The family is changing, not disappearing. We have to broaden our understanding of it, look for the new metaphors.”

“Human beings do not eat nutrients, they eat food.”