Gregory Bateson

"Learning is the adaptation to new patterns"

"The living system is self-correcting"

"Nature knows no waste"

"Consciousness is the universe aware of itself"

"Time is the medium of change"

"Dreams are maps of possibility"

"The pattern which connects all living things is a pattern of information."

"We are not thinking about what we are thinking about."

"Information is a difference that makes a difference."

"The map is not the territory."

"Flexibility is the hallmark of life; rigidity is the hallmark of death."

"All communication is metaphor."

"The creature that wins is the one that manages to organize itself."

"Nature is a network of communications, not a collection of things."

"We are caught in a web of information that we ourselves create."

"The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality ought to be."

"To understand is to perceive patterns."

"A system cannot correct itself through the same operations that created the problem."

"The mind is immanent in the larger system—the ecosystem."

"Evolution is a process of random change and selected retention."

"Ideas are living things that replicate and evolve."

"Feedback loops create stability or instability in systems."

"The world is made of circles, not lines."

"Beauty emerges from the relationship between observer and observed."

"The purpose of life is the perpetuation of life."

"Learning is a change in the organism that allows it to survive."

"What is a mind? A mind is a closed, recursive system."

"The difference that makes a difference is the smallest unit of meaning."

"We participate in each other's being."

"Recursion is the fundamental pattern of consciousness."