“Play is always voluntary. What might otherwise be play is work if it's forced. This is axiomatic.”
The Abolition of Work (1985)
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Bob Black 63
American anarchist 1951Related quotes
“A man might as well play for nothing as work for nothing.”
In an obituary, Canada Law Journal, January 1, 1881, p. 11. According to the journal: "[Cockburn] subsequently acquired a large practice in London in railway and election cases. Although he did his best for his clients, he was careful that they should do their duty by him, and the story is told that on one occasion, when an election committee met, Mr. Cockburn, the counsel for one of the parties, was absent because his fee had not accompanied the brief and the only message left was that he had gone to the Derby, with the remark that 'A man might as well play for nothing as work for nothing'".
Attributed
Source: The Way of the Pulse: Drumming with Spirit (1999), pp. 89-90
“When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.”
Quoted in Robin Heggelund Hansen, "Porting games to Linux" http://www.hardware.no/artikler/ryan_c_gordon_and_michael_simms/68450/1 hardware.no (2009-03-10)
“What I really want to see is work turned into play.”
The Abolition of Work (1985)
Context: What I really want to see is work turned into play. A first step is to discard the notions of a "job" and an "occupation." Even activities that already have some ludic content lose most of it by being reduced to jobs which certain people, and only those people, are forced to do to the exclusion of all else. Is it not odd that farm workers toil painfully in the fields while their airconditioned masters go home every weekend and putter about in their gardens? Under a system of permanent revelry, we will witness the Golden Age of the dilettante which will put the Renaissance to shame. There won't be any more jobs, just things to do and people to do them.
“Don't play what's there, play what's not there.”
In SPIN (December 1990). p. 30, and in many other sources https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=%22play+anything+on+a+horn%22+miles+davis#hl=en&q=%22don%27t+play+what%27s+there%22+not+davis&tbm=bks, but I can't find the original one.
1990s
“Must I always be waiting, waiting on you?
Must I always be playing, playing the fool?”
Sitting.
Song lyrics, In Between Dreams (2005)
“When he worked, he really worked. But when he played, he really PLAYED.”