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Gregory Bateson

Gregory Bateson Quotes

Anthropologist

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Famous Gregory Bateson Quotes

“If a man achieves or suffers change in premises which are deeply embedded in his mind, he will surely find that the results of that change will ramify throughout his whole universe.”

IfsMenMindWholeSufferingUniverseResultsAchievePremisesEmbedded
Book:Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology
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“What is true is that the idea of power corrupts. Power corrupts most rapidly those who believe in it, and it is they who will want it most. Obviously, our democratic system tends to give power to those who hunger for it and gives every opportunity to those who don't want power to avoid getting it. Not a very satisfactory arrangement if power corrupts those who believe in it and want it.”

IfsWantGivingBelieveIdeasOpportunityDemocraticHungerArrangementsPower Corrupts
Book:Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology
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“Science sometimes improves hypotheses and sometimes disproves them. But proof would be another matter and perhaps never occurs except in the realms of totally abstract tautology. We can sometimes say that if such and such abstract suppositions or postulates are given, then such and such abstract suppositions or postulates are given, then such and such must follow absolutely. But the truth about what can be perceived or arrived at by induction from perception is something else again.”

IfsSometimesMatterWould BeGivenPerceptionProofRealmsAbstractHypothesisSuppositionTautology
Author:Gregory Bateson
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