“Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.”

—  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Illusions
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)
Source: The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty …" by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson 727
American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882

Related quotes

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“The game must be played, and played their way, though they made all the rules and had all the skill. His ineptitude did not matter. His honesty did. He was staked now totally on one belief: that an honest man cannot be cheated, that truth, if the game be played through right to the end, will lead to truth.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, City of Illusions (1967), Chapter 7

Terry Brooks photo

“Deception is mostly a game we play with ourselves.”

Terry Brooks book The Black Unicorn

Source: The Black Unicorn

Jack Vance photo

“He used a name for himself, true, but we played at Romance, and this is a game where truth is a bagatelle.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), Madouc (1989), Chapter 8, section 5 (p. 904)

Josh Billings photo

“As in a game ov cards, so in the game ov life, we must play what is dealt tew us, and the glory consists, not so mutch in winning, as in playing a poor hand well.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things https://archive.org/details/joshbillingsoni00billgoog (1868), Chapter XXIV: "Perkussion Caps", p. 89; republished in The Complete Works of Josh Billings http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36556 (1876), Chapter 141: "Ods and Ens", p. 248. Often paraphrased as "Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well."

Huey P. Newton photo

“When you deal with a man, deal with his most valuable possession, his life. There's play and there's the deep flow. I like to take things to the deep flow of play, because everything is a game, serious and nonserious at the same time. So play life like it's a game.”

Huey P. Newton (1942–1989) Co-founder of the Black Panther Party

quoted in David Hilliard (2006) Huey: Spirit of the Panther, p. 46

Michael Jordan photo

“What is love? Love is playing every game as if it's your last!”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

“A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.”

James P. Carse American academic

Source: Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility

Richelle Mead photo

“Since when do we even play games?”

“Since when don’t we play games? Games of life, games of death. Games of love, of hope, of chance, of despair, and of all the myriad wonders in between.”

I rolled my eyes at the newcomer. “Hello, Carter.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus on Top

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse photo

“Government must keep the ring, and leave it for individuals to play the game.”

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864–1929) British sociologist

Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter III, The Movement Of Theory, p. 34 .

Diane Abbott photo

“White people love playing ‘divide & rule’. We should not play their game.”

Diane Abbott (1953) British Labour Party politician

Twitter post reproduced in Daily Telegraph, 5 Jan 2012 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/8994068/Diane-Abbott-White-people-love-playing-divide-and-rule.html
2010s, 2012

Related topics