“Play the game, but don’t believe in it – that much you owe yourself … Play the game, but raise the ante, my boy. Learn how it operates, learn how you operate.”
Source: Invisible Man
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Ralph Ellison 82
American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer 1914–1994Related quotes
“It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.”
Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 19, The Successful Politician Does Not Drink
“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”
An abbreviated version of a quote by California politician Dianne Feinstein, from an interview with Cosmopolitan magazine in October 1985 https://books.google.com/books?id=zmxNAQAAIAAJ&dq=You+have+to+learn+the+rules+of+the+game+and+then+you+have+to+play+better+than+anyone+else&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22rules+of+the+game%22, on the topic of women running for public office. The original was: "... I really do have staying power. That's important for women who run for office. When you get in there and push for a lot of new things all at once and don't get them, you don't just leave. You have to commit, be a team player, learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play it better than anyone else."
Misattributed
Source: The Practice of Natural Movement: Reclaim Power, Health, and Freedom (2019), p. 79
Source: Stations of the Tide (1991), Chapter 3, “The Dance of the Inheritors” (p. 46)
“Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”
Mr. Spencer
Source: The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Chapter 2
A Conversation with Martin de Maat (1998)
Context: The beginning of this work is just how to get people to remember how to play, to be in play. Once you're in play, you're in the moment. You're not judgmental, you're enjoying each other, you're accepting of everything that goes on; you're trusting yourself and just doing the game as best as you can. Your critical mind is gone, your analytical mind is not involved. Really, it's just the flow that goes on between human beings, the group the power of the ensemble.
As with any ensemble, it is the team effort or the group effort that makes the individual grow or look good. That's what the center of this work is all about, what these games and exercises are all about... breaking down barriers between people, empowering the individual to believe in their own associations and ideas, uncovering the courage to create, the courage to communicate.