“What is God after all? An eternal child playing an eternal game in an eternal garden.”
Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet
Thoughts and Glimpses (1916-17)
“Eternity is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child.”
Quoted by Hippolytus, Refutation of all heresies, IX, 9, 4 (Fragment 52), as translated in Reality (1994), by Carl Avren Levenson and Jonathan Westphal, p. 10
Variants:
History is a child building a sand-castle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man’s power in the world.
As quoted in Contemporary Literature in Translation (1976), p. 21
A lifetime is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child.
As quoted in The Beginning of All Wisdom: Timeless Advice from the Ancient Greeks (2003) by Steven Stavropoulos, p. 95
Time is a game played beautifully by children.
As quoted in Fragments (2001) translated by Brooks Haxton
Lifetime is a child at play, moving pieces in a game. Kingship belongs to the child.
As quoted in The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (1979) translated by Charles H. Kahn
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pre-Socratic Greek philosopher -535Related quotes
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher
The Principle of Reason (1955–1956) as translated by Reginald Lilly (1991) <!-- Bloomington: Indiana UP -->
Context: The Geschick of being: a child that plays... Why does it play, the great child of the world-play Heraclitus brought into view in the aiôn? It plays, because it plays. The "because" withers away in the play. The play is without "why." It plays since it plays. It simply remains a play: the most elevated and the most profound. But this "simply" is everything, the one, the only... The question remains whether and how we, hearing the movements of this play, play along and accommodate ourselves to the play.
“These young guys are playing checkers. I'm out there playing chess.”
Kobe Bryant (1978–2020) American basketball player
“Nearly right is child's play.”
Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) American photographer
Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries, Sarah Greenough, Washington: National Gallery of Art. 2000, pp. 26–53; as quoted on Wikipedia
“Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child”
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer
A Gossip on Romance, printed in Longman's Magazine (November 1882).
Context: Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his life.
Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer
Section 1.3 <!-- p. 10 -->
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)
Context: The concentration of a small child at play is analogous to the concentration of the artist of any discipline. In real play, which is real concentration, the child is not only outside time, he is outside himself. He has thrown himself completely into whatever it is he is doing. A child playing a game, building a sand castle, painting a picture, is completely in what he is doing. His self-consciousness is gone; his consciousness is wholly focused outside himself.
Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian
Source: America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“Beating heroin is child's play compared to beating your childhood.”
Stephen King book The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
Source: The Waste Lands
“Learning is not child's play; we cannot learn without pain.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy