“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

Source: Mind and Nature, a necessary unity, 1988, p. 68

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "To think straight, it is advisable to expect all qualities and attributes, adjectives, and so on to refer to at least t…" by Gregory Bateson?
Gregory Bateson photo
Gregory Bateson49
English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual … 1904–1980

Related quotes

Jonas Salk photo

“I see weeds and flowers. I think of it in those terms, and we have to discriminate and distinguish between the two, to recognize and encourage those human qualities and attributes that are the more positive.”

Jonas Salk (1914–1995) Inventor of polio vaccine

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

Nancy Wilson photo

“I don't think that Anne or I had any concept that we were unusual to have this idea to go straight for The Beatles-type thing. So, completely without a sexual reference involved, just strode in the door and made a band, or two, or three.”

Nancy Wilson (1954) American rock musician, member of Heart

On forming bands with her sister, Anne, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame interview, 2016

Alexander Bain photo

“The arguments for the two substances - mind and body - have, we believe, entirely lost their validity; they are no longer compatible with ascertained science and clear thinking. One substance with two sets of attributes, two sides (a physical and a mental), a double-faced unity, would appear to comply with all the exigencies of the case.”

Alexander Bain (1818–1903) Scottish philosopher and educationalist

Alexander Bain. Mind and Body: The Theories of their Relation (1872), p. 196; as cited in: The Popular Science Monthly http://books.google.com/books?id=sysDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA162, Vol. 27, June 1885, p. 162.

“I expect most psychiatrists have a patient or two they'd like to refer to me.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

Ray Bradbury photo

“He stood very straight and thought of nothing, or at least thought of thinking nothing.”

Ray Bradbury book The October Country

Homecoming (1946)
The October Country (1955)

Bill Maher photo

“But I don't think there's ever been a time when the two sides just have two different sets of reality.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Larry King Live interview (2010)
Context: This is a really fascinating time because, again, we live in these two different realities. I don't think it's ever been like this. I know there's always been a — shall we say passionate — a passionate divide in American politics. But I don't think there's ever been a time when the two sides just have two different sets of reality.
I mean, if more than half the Republicans think that Obama is trying to impose Sharia law on the United States of America, that's not something that you can argue about. That's just something in their view that has to be extirpated.

Humberto Maturana photo

“The linguistic domain as a domain of orienting behavior requires at least two interacting organisms with comparable domains of interactions, so that a cooperative system of consensual interactions may be developed in which the emerging conduct of the two organisms is relevant for both. The specifiability through learning of the orienting interactions allows for a purely consensual (cultural) evolution in this domain, without it necessarily involving any further evolution of the nervous system; for this reason the linguistic domain in general, and the domain of self-consciousness in particular, are, in principle, independent of the biological substratum that generates them.”

Humberto Maturana (1928) Chilean biologist and philosopher

Source: Biology of Cognition (1970), p. 43.

Tom Stoppard photo

“Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance at least. You could lie there thinking: Well, at least I'm not dead.”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“It is indeed paradoxical that an industry which epitomizes all that is new and up-to-date at the same time harbours some of the oldest and least desirable attributes of work in manufacturing industry.”

Peter Dicken (1938) British geographer

Source: Global Shift (2003) (Fourth Edition), Chapter 12, The Semiconductor Industry, p. 409

Related topics