Gregory Bateson Quotes

Number is different from quantity. This difference is basic for any sort of theorizing in behavioral science, any sort of imagining of what goes on between organisms or inside organisms as part of their processes of thought.

Mathematics is the language of size.

Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted.

One figure can sometimes add up to a lot.

No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man; no other idea has so fruitfully stimulated his intellect; yet no other concept stands in greater need of clarification than that of the infinite.

Two things are as big as the man who possesses them - neither bigger nor smaller. One is a minute, the other a dollar.

In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.

The primary factor is proportions.

It's quantity, not quality.

I have a particular affection for zero because it was some of my countrymen who first gave it the status of a number.

The idea is more important than the object.

Number, the most excellent of all inventions.

Quality, not quantity, is my measure.

He who can make distinction in God without number or quantity, knows that the three persons of the Trinity are one God.

To speak freely of mathematics, I find it the highest exercise of the spirit; but at the same time I know that it is so useless that I make little distinction between a man who is only a mathematician and a common artisan. Also, I call it the most beautiful profession in the world; but it is only a profession.

Excellence resides in quality, not in quantity. The best is always few and rare; much lowers value.

It seems to me, that the only Objects of the abstract Sciences or of Demonstration is Quantity and Number, and that all Attempts to extend this more perfect Species of Knowledge beyond these Bounds are mere Sophistry and Illusion.

Through and through the world is infested with quantity: To talk sense is to talk quantities. It is no use saying the nation is large. . . . How large? It is no use saying the radium is scarce. . . . How scarce? You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves.

We have been measuring too much in terms of the dollar. What we should do is think in terms of useful materials-things that will be of value to us in our daily life.

Busy does not equal important. Measured doesn't mean mattered.

Knowing it and seeing it are two different things.

The difference is no less real because it is of degree.

Meaningless yards are not meaningful.

The distance from nothing to a little, is ten thousand times more, than from it to the highest degree in this life.

The exact Quantity and Quality being found out, is to be kept to constantly.