Quotes about play (4845 quotes, page 37)

“I call to mind a winter landscape in Amsterdam — a flat foreground of waste land, with here and there stacks of timber, like the huts of a camp of some very miserable tribe; the long stretch of the Handelskade; cold, stone-faced quays, with the snow-sprinkled ground and the hard, frozen water of the canal, in which were set ships one behind another with their frosty mooring-ropes hanging slack and their decks idle and deserted, because… their cargoes were frozen-in up-country on barges and schuyts. In the distance, beyond the waste ground, and running parallel with the line of ships, a line of brown, warm-toned houses seemed bowed under snow-laden roofs. From afar at the end of Tsar Peter Straat, issued in the frosty air the tinkle of bells of the horse tramcars, appearing and disappearing in the opening between the buildings, like little toy carriages harnessed with toy horses and played with by people that appeared no bigger than children.”

Joseph Conrad book The Mirror of the Sea

On Amsterdam, Ch. 14
The Mirror of the Sea (1906)

Children , People , Water , Appearance

“When I want to play music, you've got to get me on tape or else it goes.”

Joe Satriani (1956) American guitar player

As quoted in Guitar 2001 magazine, Issue #10, (Summer 2001).

Music

“When you hear something you don't like, don't ever play it again.”

Joe Satriani (1956) American guitar player

As quoted in Joe Satriani : Riff By Riff (1994) by Rich Maloof

“We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again. You do not suppose, my lady, that if all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we would be at a loss for a corkscrew?”

Tom Stoppard Arcadia

Septimus, Act I
Arcadia (1993)

Life , Disease , Travel , Mathematics

“I took one of my kids to the dentist one time when he was about six or seven years old. The dentist said, "Mr. Hovind, this kid has a cavity." I said, "Yes sir, I know about that. Are you talking about the big one in his head or the one in his tooth?" He said, "Well, just the one in his tooth. That's the one we are going to fix today." I said, "Okay, let's fix it Doc." Then I said, "Now son, you've got to sit still. The dentist has to give you a shot." He says, "A SHOT! A SHOT!" I said, "Yes, he's going to give you a shot. Calm down; I've had one before." I showed him where I had mine. I said, "It's no problem. When he gives you the shot, your mouth will go numb so he can drill out the bad part and fill the hole with silver." He says, "Daddy, he's going to give me a SHOT!" I said, "Yes son, he's going to give you a shot. Now, listen carefully. SIT STILL! If you wiggle, I'm going to have to take you outside and spank you, so, don't -- wiggle!" He did his best. He tried to sit still, but when the doctor pulled out that giant needle about twelve feet long, and poured in about eighteen gallons of Novocain, and said, "Okay kid, open up," he freaked. [….. ] We tried to hold him still, but we couldn't hold him still enough for that kind of operation. [….. ] Finally, after a few minutes the doctor gave up and said, "I can't work on this kid. I'm sorry, I just can't do it." I said, "Doc, let me take him outside and talk to him for a few minutes." We went out to the parking lot, got in the old Chevy van and sat in the back seat. I said, "Son, listen carefully. You know that I love you." He said, "I know daddy." I said, "Now son, I told you to sit still. You did not sit still. What happens when you disobey daddy?" He said, "Sniff, sniff… I get a spanking?" I said, "Correct, bend over." Boy, did I give him a spanking, and it was a doozy. A few minutes later, smoke was rising off his hind end, tears were coming out of his eyes, and pearls were coming out of his nostrils -- the whole thing. I said, "Okay son, listen carefully. We are going to go back into the dentist office, and you are going to sit in that chair. If you wiggle one time, I'm not going to yell at you and I'm not going to scream at you. I'm going to calmly take you back out here to the van, and I'm going to give you two spankings just like the one you just received. Then, we are going to go back into the dentist office, and you are going to sit in the chair. If you wiggle, we are going to come back out to the van, and you are going to get three spankings just like the one you just got. Son, we are going to go back and forth all day long until I get tired, and I have played tennis for years. I have a wonderful forehand smash. I don't believe I'll get tired for a long time, son." I believe that he knew that, and I knew that. We went back into the dentist office. That kid sat in the chair. The dentist said, "Open your mouth." He opened his mouth. The dentist said, "Open it wider." He held it open real wide, and I said, "Son, sit still." He looked over at me, then he looked at that dentist with that giant needle. He started to shake; then he looked at me again. As he gripped the chair, he did not move a muscle. I don't think the kid even breathed for twenty minutes. The doctor gave him the shot; drilled it out; filled the tooth full of silver; and we were on our way out the door in fifteen or twenty minutes. It wasn't long at all. The doctor then said, "Mr. Hovind, come here." I said, "Yes sir?" He said, "Look, I don't know what you said to that kid while you were outside, but I would like for you to work for me."”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

I said, "No sir, you don't want me to work for you, the Child Welfare would have me in jail in a flash."
Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution (1996)

Love , Way , Boy , Problem

“Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

Hugh Latimer (1485–1555) British bishop

To his friend Nicholas Ridley, as they were both about to be burned as heretics for their teachings and beliefs outside Balliol College, Oxford (16 October 1555); as quoted in History of the British Empire (1870) by William Francis Collier, p. 124; also in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, p. 36; and in The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1989) by Robert Andrews, p. 190.
Variants:
Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
As quoted in the Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, touching Matters of the Church (Foxe's Book of Martyrs) (1563) by John Foxe; also in The London Encyclopaedia, or, Universal Dictionary of Science, Art, Literature, and Practical Mechanics (1829) by Thomas Tegg, p. 455
Be of good cheer, master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle in England, as I hope, by God's grace, shall never be put out.
As quoted in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction (1831) by Reuben Percy and John Timbs, p. 419
Be of good comfort, brother and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
As quoted in Historical Collections Relating to Remarkable Periods of the Success of the Gospel (1845) by John Gillies and Horatius Bonar, p. 57
Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, play the man; We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
As quoted in An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1847) by Charles Bridges, p. 126, but he cites Foxe as source, so this is clearly a slight misquotation of Foxe's version.
Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man, for we shall this day light such a candle in England as I trust by God's grace shall never be put out.
As quoted in The Conscience of Culture (1953) by Everett Tilson, p. 116

God , Light

“What I wanted to get at is the value difference between pornographic playing-cards when you're a kid, and pornographic playing-cards when you're older. It's that when you're a kid you use the cards as a substitute for a real experience, and when you're older you use real experience as a substitute for the fantasy.”

Edward Albee The Zoo Story

The Zoo Story (1959)

“If we experience our power of awareness, feel something to be conscious right here and now, know that there is something between and behind the thoughts that perceives and understands, then everything is free play and a gift.”

Lama Ole Nydahl (1941) Danish lama

Knowing Our Experiencing Mind, Buddhism Today Issue 21, Spring/Summer 2008.

Feeling , Understanding

“A nonlinear differential equation of the Riccati type is derived for the covariance matrix of the optimal filtering error. The solution of this 'variance equation' completely specifies the optimal filter for either finite or infinite smoothing intervals and stationary or non-stationary statistics.
The variance equation is closely related to the Hamiltonian (canonical) differential equations of the calculus of variations. Analytic solutions are available in some cases. The significance of the variance equation is illustrated by examples which duplicate, simplify, or extend earlier results in this field.
The duality principle relating stochastic estimation and deterministic control problems plays an important role in the proof of theoretical results. In several examples, the estimation problem and its dual are discussed side-by-side.
Properties of the variance equation are of great interest in the theory of adaptive systems. Some aspects of this are considered briefly.”

Rudolf E. Kálmán (1930–2016) Hungarian-born American electrical engineer

Source: New results in linear filtering and prediction theory (1961), p. 95 Article summary; cited in: " Rudolf E. Kálmán http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Kalman.html", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, 2010

Error , Optimism , Problem

“Americans expect Seoul to play good cop to their bad cop. They assume the commonality of language, ethnicity and culture will help the South build trust with the North, so it can put the alliance’s demands over more persuasively. They also reckon the North Koreans will find it easier to yield to soft-spoken fellow Koreans than to the foreigners with whom they have been exchanging threats and insults for decades. But to play such a role the South must overcome an exceptionally high barrier of mistrust. It gets no brownie points for Koreanness alone. On the contrary; from the North’s standpoint it’s precisely that co-ethnicity which makes the puppet state’s long collusion with the Yankees so heinous.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Portrait of the Ally as an Intermediary (March 2018)

Help

“That was a day of delight and wonder.
While lying the shade of the maple trees under—
He felt the soft breeze at its frolicksome play;
He smelled the sweet odor of newly mown hay.”

Thomas Dunn English (1819–1902) American state and federal politician

Under the Trees, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 494.

Lying , Tree

“It would be much better for everyone if the black vote was 'in play' and both major parties had to compete for it. As virtual captives of the Democrats since 1936, blacks have ended up being taken for granted by them and mostly ignored by Republicans.”

Bruce Bartlett (1951) American historian

Source: 2000s, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past (2008), p. xiv

“In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all of them, have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxemburg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill ‘Bolshevism versus Zionism; a struggle for the soul of the Jewish people’ in Illustrated Daily Herald, 8 February 1920.
Early career years (1898–1929)

Men , People , World , Faith

“Just watch the film… I don’t know what people are saying, but I’m not too worried about it anymore. All I can do is go out there and play hard and try and help my team win, and that’s what I’m going to keep doing.”

Brian Urlacher (1978) All-American college football player, professional football player, linebacker

Adversity not slowing Urlacher's meteoric rise, English http://www.chicagobears.com/news/NewsStory.asp?story_id=2603,

After being dubbed "overrated".

People , Help

“The earth is round, so why to play it square? Beneath the sun and beneath the moon, in the clouds that sail gently by, everything is going round. Children dance in a ring; there is the Tour de France, and the bikes, and the eyes that look at them and frame them on the road… You leave your rectangles, your geometrical windows, and you go to the land of circles in action…. It's human nature to break through boundaries, to grow, to push towards freedom. Roundness is free; it has no beginning and no end.”

Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter

referring to the circus ring
Quote, 1950's, from: Fernand Léger - The Later Years, catalogue ed. Nicolas Serota, published by the Trustees of the Whitechapel Art gallery, London, Prestel Verlag, 1988, p. 41
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1950's

Children , Nature , Freedom , Sun

“When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity. So, when we wholly concentrate, like a child in play, or an artist at work, then we share in the act of creating. We not only escape time, we escape our self-conscious selves.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Section 1.3
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)

Time

“Art and music make manifest, by bringing into conscious awareness, that which has previously been felt only tentatively and internally. Art, in its widest sense, is a form of play that lies at the origin of all making, of language, and of the mind's awareness of its place within the world. Art, in all its forms, makes manifest the spiritual dimension of the cosmos, and expresses our relationship to the natural world. This may have been the cause of that natural light which first illuminated the preconscious minds of early hominids.”

F. David Peat (1938–2017) British physicist

Pathways of Chance (2007).

World , Art , Music , Nature

“Roger: It’s totally cool you know. We go out there and put our best foot forward and we play songs we’ve played before, and that feels like we know what’s going to happen. The crowd is going to react to it or they’re not going to react to it. If we went out there and played all new songs it would be lame.”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

Feeling

“When the angels praise God in Heaven I am sure they play Bach. However, en famille they play Mozart, and then God the Lord is especially delighted to listen to them.”

Karl Barth (1886–1968) Swiss Protestant theologian

"Witness to an Ancient Truth" (1962)

God , Angels

“Suppose you wanted to kill people. You would need to know ahead of time how to do it. That part is not too difficult. There are many ways. Some of them are better than others. Most of them have drawbacks. So you use what knowledge you've got, and you invent a new way. You think, and you think, and you think, and you come up with the perfect method. You pay a lot of attention to the setup. Because the perfect method is not an easy method, and careful preparation is very important. But that stuff is meat and potatoes to you. You have no problem with careful preparation. No problem at all. How could you, with your intelligence? After all your training? You know the big problems will come afterward. How do you make sure you get away with it? You use your knowledge. You know more than most people about how the cops work. You've seen them on duty many times, sometimes close-up. You know what they look for. So you don't leave anything for them to find. You go through it all in your head, very precisely and very exactly and very carefully. Just as carefully as you would mark the play card you knew for sure was going to win you a fortune.”

Lee Child book Running Blind

Source: Running Blind (2000), Ch. 1.

People , Way , Intelligence , Knowledge

“And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the checkered shade.
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Source: L'Allegro (1631), Line 94

Youth , Holiday , Dance

“We wanted to start a magazine, and Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman from the band Bratmobile had started a little fanzine called Riot Grrrl and we were writing little things for it. I'd always wanted to start a big magazine with really cool, smart writing in it, and I wanted to see if the other punk girls in D. C. that I was meeting were interested in that. So I called a meeting and found a space for it, and it just turned into this sort of consciousness-raising thing. I realized really quickly that a magazine wasn't the way to go. People wanted to be having shows, and teaching each other how to play music, and writing fanzines, so that started happening. It got some press attention, and girls in other places would be like "I wanna do that. I wanna start one of those."”

Kathleen Hanna (1968) American musician and feminist activist

Index Magazine (2000).
On riot grrrl

People , Music , Way , Girl

“South of the border, down Mexico way.
That's where I fell in love where stars above, came out to play.
And now as I wonder, my thoughts ever stray
South of the border, down Mexico way.”

Jimmy Kennedy (1902–1984) Irish songwriter

Song South of the Border (1939)
Song lyrics

Love , Way , Star

“Next year there will be a celebration dedicated to the victory in the Battle of Poltava, so it would be symbolic to play the match with Sweden there.”

Anatoliy Tymoshchuk (1979) Ukrainian footballer

http://www.sports.ru/football/4848739.html (2008)

Victory

“There is no question that the adult caregivers play an important role in the baby's life. It is from these older people that babies learn their first language, have their first experiences in forming and maintaining relationships, and get their first lessons in following rules. But the socialization researchers go on to draw other conclusions: that what children learn in the early years about relationships and rules sets the pattern for later relationships and later rule-following, and hence determines the entire course of their lives. I used to think so too. I still believe that children need to learn about relationships and rules in their early years; it is also important that they acquire a language. But I no longer believe that this early learning, which in our society generally takes place within the home, sets the pattern for what is to follow. Although the learning itself serves a purpose, the content of what children learn may be irrelevant to the world outside their home. They may cast it off when they step outside as easily as the dorky sweater their mother made them wear.”

Judith Rich Harris book The Nurture Assumption

The Nurture Assumption, chapter 1. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/harris-nurture.html

Life , Children , People , World

“I love coming in with a battle plan, but I also love the freedom to make things up with my actors, and my DP, too. Sometimes we’ll be in a scene and I see new things we can do, so I will throw whatever stuff that has been cooking away in my brain for a long time because I think what I'm coming up with on the set might serve the film better. You know, your instinct will tell you, “This is a better way, try this other way instead,” and that's very important for me, and that is my style of filmmaking, for better or for worse. That's how I like to approach it. And a lot of it comes to me when I'm designing the script, the screenplay. I'm generally very involved in the screenplay, even the ones I'm not on officially as a writer, I'm still extremely involved in how I craft the screen with the writers. I like to get in there and I really craft the world so I can have an idea of how all that will play out before I go on set. Then when I go on set, I like to keep it free, so that I can improvise with my actors.”

James Wan (1977) Malaysian-born Australian film director, screenwriter and producer

Interview: James Wan on His Creative Process, Returning to Horror with The Conjuring 2 and His Approach to Aquaman https://dailydead.com/interview-james-wan-creative-process-returning-horror-conjuring-2-approach-aquaman/ (June 9, 2016)

Love , World , Way , Idea

“ One is reminded of the actor, playing the role of a villain in a traveling theatrical troupe, who, at a particularly tense moment in the play, was shot by an excited cowpuncher in the audience. But this kind of confusion does not seem to be confined to unsophisticated theatergoers. […] Paul Muni, after playing the part of Clarence Darrow in Inherit the Wind, was invited to address the American Bar Association; Ralph Bellamy, after playing the role of Frankin D. Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello, was invited by several colleges to speak on Roosevelt. Also, there are those astonishing patriots who rushed to the recruiting offices to help defend the nation when, on October 30, 1938, the United States was "invaded" by an "army from Mars" in a radio dramatization. ”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), The Pitfalls of Drama, p. 28

Travel , Help , Parting

“Sometimes politicians take the easy way out in their bid to remain popular by playing up religious and racial issues. This causes uneasy feelings among the people who may only be the followers and have no inkling about the issues being fanned.”

Abdul Halim of Kedah (1927–2017) King of Malaysia

mysinchew.com http://www.mysinchew.com/node/67694 12/12/2011

People , Way , Feeling

“No, George said, you don’t understand. The pinball machine--any pinball machine you play in any penny arcade--is so remarkable, so fine, so shrewdly threaded. It is already beautiful in necessity and sufficiency of wire, connection, possibility.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

"This Is a Story about My Friend George, the Toy Inventor"

Beauty , Understanding

“You had to play the big scene,” he said coldly. “Stand on your rights, talk about the law. How ingenuous can a man get, Marlowe? A man like you who is supposed to know his way around. The law isn’t justice. It’s a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.”

Raymond Chandler book The Long Goodbye

Source: The Long Goodbye (1954), chapter 8

Justice , Law , Way

“Anya: How 'bout you, ever play Shiver Me Timbers?
Tara: I'm not really much for the timber.”

Amber Benson (1977) actress from the United States

Tough Love [5.19]
Willow & Tara (2000-2002)

“Bring tea for the Tillerman,
Steak for the sun,
Wine for the women who made the rain come,
Seagulls sing your hearts away
‘Cause while the sinners sin, the children play”

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

Tea For The Tillerman
Song lyrics, Tea for the Tillerman (1970)

Women , Children , Wine , Singing

“6372. All Work, and no Play,
Makes Jack a dull boy.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Boy

“For me the intentions of background music are openly political, and an example of how political power is constantly shifting from the ballot box into areas where the voter has nowhere to mark his ballot paper. The most important political choices in the future will probably never be consciously exercised. I'm intrigued by the way some background music is surprisingly aggressive, especially that played on consumer complaint phone lines and banks, airplanes and phone companies themselves, with strident non-rhythmic and arms-length sequences that are definitely not user-friendly.”

J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) British writer

As quoted in Elevator Music (1994) by Joseph Lanza

Music , Way , Exercises , Future

“I began [to portray president Kennedy ] with fragmentary sketches—first in charcoal, then in casein, sometimes just heads, sometimes the whole figure. For the first session (during a Medicare conference), I sat on top of a 6-foot ladder to get an unimpeded view of him. Concentrating on bone structure, most of my first sketches of him made him look twenty years younger. This was also because the positions he assumed were those of a college athlete. I made about thirty sketches at the first session and rushed back to a big studio that had been turned over to me by the Norton Gallery, made further drawing combining different aspects, and finally, after a couple days, decided on the proportions and size of the first canvas—4 by 8 feet. In succeeding sessions of sketching, I was struck by the curious faceted structure of light over his face and hair—a quality of transparent ruddiness. This play of light contributed to the extraordinary variety of expressions.”

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) American painter

n.p.
1950 - 1971, Painting a Portrait of the President', Elaine de Kooning (1964)

Light , Drawing

“Religious harmony is a desirable thing. But it takes two to play the game. Unfortunately such a sentiment holds a low position in Islamic theology.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7

Game

“I used old comic clothes stuff in the early days. I had the big shoes, I had the tight clothes, in fact I played several different characters. I played one called Willie Work; he used to have wide shoulders, a little cat mustache, a high hat. Another one was called Lonesome Luke, and his clothes were tight with a little funny hat; he had a funny little mustache. But when I adopted the glasses, it more or less put me in a different category because I became a human being. He was a kid that you would meet next door, across the street, but at the same time I could still do all the crazy things that we did before, but you believed them. They were natural and the romance could be believable.”

Harold Lloyd (1893–1971) American film actor and producer

1962 TV interview with Harry Reasoner.

Shoe , Cats , Nature , Time

“Before the prospect of an intelligence explosion, we humans are like small children playing with a bomb. Such is the mismatch between the power of our plaything and the immaturity of our conduct. Superintelligence is a challenge for which we are not ready now and will not be ready for a long time. We have little idea when the detonation will occur, though if we hold the device to our ear we can hear a faint ticking sound.”

Nick Bostrom book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

Source: Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014), Ch. 15

Children , Intelligence , Idea , Time

“Communism never sleeps, never changes its objectives, nor must we. Our first duty to freedom is to defend our own. Then one day we might export a little to those peoples who have to live without it. Let no one be under any misunderstanding about the inflexible resolve of Her Majesty's Government to strengthen our defences and to play our full part in the defence of a free Europe.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech at "Youth for Europe" Rally (2 June 1979) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104088
First term as Prime Minister

People , Communication , Sleep , Freedom

“[Television, radio, and magazines] are so designed as to make thinking seem unnecessary (though this is only an appearance). The packaging of intellectual positions and views is one of the most active enterprises of some of the best minds of our day. The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines, is presented with a whole complex of elements—all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully selected data and statistics—to make it easy for him to “make up his own mind” with the minimum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and “plays back” the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has performed acceptably without having had to think.”

Mortimer J. Adler book How to Read a Book

Source: How to Read a Book (1940, 1972), p. 4

Way , Thinking , Effort , Appearance

“Faith plays an important role in an open society. Exactly because our understanding is imperfect, we cannot base our decisions on knowledge alone. We need to rely on beliefs, religious or otherwise, to help us make decisions. But we must remain open to the possibility that we may be wrong so that we can correct our mistakes. Otherwise, we are bound to be wrong.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Speech at the National Press Club (2004)

Faith , Understanding , Knowledge , Decision

“I don't play this game to make friends.”

Milton Bradley (baseball) (1978) Major League Baseball player

ESPN, Bradley knows only one way — the hard way, Alan Schwarz, July 10, 2003, 2009-01-04 http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=1574709&type=story,

Game

“The efficient accounting and business methods which are supposed to characterize capitalist firms did not drop from the sky. They are the result of historical evolution, and in that evolution the exploitation of Africa played a key role”

Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 292.

Business

“One should view the present situation – the status quo – as being maintained by certain conditions or forces. A culture – for instance, the food habits of a certain group at a given time – is not a static affair but a live process like a river which moves but still keeps to a recognizable form…Food habits do not occur in empty space. They are part and parcel of the daily rhythm of being awake and asleep; of being alone and in a group; of earning a living and playing; of being a member of a town, a family, a social class, a religious group... in a district with good groceries and restaurants or in an area of poor and irregular food supply. Somehow all these factors affect food habits at any given time. They determine the food habits of a group every day anew just as the amount of water supply and the nature of the river bed determine the ﬂow of the river, its constancy or change.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Kurt Lewin (1943) "Psychological ecology". In: D. Cartwright (Ed.) Field Theory in Social Science. London: Social Science Paperbacks. As cited in: Bernard Burnes (2004) " Kurt Lewin and the Planned Approach to Change: A Re-appraisal https://blackboard.le.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/institution/College%20of%20Social%20Science/School%20of%20Management/DL%20Materials/MBA/2.%20Organizational%20Behaviour/Section%208/Burnes.pdf" in: Journal of Management Studies. Vol 41. Nr 6. p. 977-1002.
1940s

Family , Food , Nature , Water

“Again, when Allaudin Khalji sacked Deogiri, hundreds of Sufis betook themselves to the South and established monasteries, to finance which fat sums were extracted from the local chiefs. Hajji Sayyid alias Sarwar Makhdum, Husam ad-Din, and several other Sufis took part in offensive wars openly, on account of which they were entitled Qattal (the great slayers) and Kuffar-bhanjan (destroyers of the Kafirs). Shaykh Jalal ad-Din Tabrizi demolished a large temple and constructed a Takiyah (khanqah) at Devatalla (Deva Mahal) in Bengal…. Mir Sayyid ‘Ali Hamadani (1314-1385) began to get Hindu temples demolished and the Hindus converted by reckless use of force throughout his sojourn in Kashmir… Thanks to the influence of Hamadani’s Sufi son Mir Muhammad (b. 1372), who stepped into his father’s shoes after the latter had left Kashmir after failing to pull on well with Qutb ad-Din, Sikandar (1389-1413), a liberal Sultan of Kashmir, turned into a ferocious Sultan for the Hindus and began to be known as Sikandar Butshikan (iconoclast), and his powerful Brahmana noble Suhabhatta embraced Islam under the name Sayf ad-Din and became a terror for the Brahmanas. Guided by the teachings of Mir Muhammad, Sikandar played havoc with the Hindus through Sayf ad-Din, destroyed their temples, undertook forcible conversions, and imposed Jizyah on them for the first time in Kashmir. Indeed, he out-Aurangzebed Aurangzeb in his Hindu-persecution-mania.”

Harsh Narain (1921–1995) Indian writer

Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions (1990)

War , Shoe , Time , Parting

“I’ll play it and tell you what it is later.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

In [So What: The Life of Miles Davis, John, Szwed, Random House, 2012, 9781448106462], and in many other books https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=%22play+anything+on+a+horn%22+miles+davis#hl=en&q=%22+and+tell+you+what+it+is+later.+%22+miles+davis&tbm=bks
Sometimes rendered as: I'll play it first and tell you what it is later.
During a recording session for Prestige, on the album "Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet" (1956).
1950s

“I think those neighborhood signs that say 'slow children playing' are so very mean.”

Zach Galifianakis (1969) American actor and comedian

Live at the Purple Onion (2007)

Funny , Children , Thinking

“I jus' try to sacrifice myself, so I get runner to third. If I do, I feel good. But I get heet and Willie scores, and I feel better than good. […] What makes me feel most good is that the skipper let me play the whole game. I think maybe he take me out after a few innings for Aaron but no, he pay me big compliment. I stay in game and that gave me confidence. I think I don't let him down, no?”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "'All-Star Clemente Wins MVP Award" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=GwBbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=H04NAAAAIBAJ&pg=2384%2C288081 by Joe Reichler (AP), in The Michigan Daily (Wednesday, July 12, 1961), p. 4
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1961</big>

Feeling , Confidence , Game , Thinking

“Isn't this the prettiest little thing you've ever seen? It was over a year ago I held this belt high in the air after I fought for it for the first time in Dayton, Ohio against Samoa Joe and I proclaimed this belt the most important thing to me. Right now, in my hands, as of this day 6/18/05, THIS becomes the most important belt in the world! This belt in the hands of any other man is just a belt, but in my hands it becomes power. Just like this microphone in the hands of any of the boys in the back is just a microphone, but in the hands of a dangerous man like myself it becomes a pipe-bomb. These words that I speak spoken by anybody else are just words strung loosely together to form sentences. What I say I mean, and what I mean I say, and they become anthems! You see, if I could be afforded the time here a little bit of a story. There was once an old man, walking home from work. He was walking in the snow, and he stumbled upon a snake frozen in the ice. He took that snake, and he brought it home, and he took care of it, and he thawed it out, and he nursed it back to health. And as soon as that snake was well enough, it bit the old man. And as the old man lay there dying he asked the snake, 'Why? I took care of you. I loved you. I saved your life.' And that snake looked that man right in the eye and said, 'You stupid old man. I'm a snake.' The greatest thing the devil ever did was make you people believe he didn't exist… and you're looking at him right now! I AM THE DEVIL HIMSELF! And all of you stupid, mindless people fell for it! You all believed in the same make-believe superhero that the legendary Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat saw some year ago today. No, you see, you don't know anything. You followed me hook-line and sinker, all of you did, and I'm not mad at you… I just feel sorry for you. This belongs to me! Everything you see here belongs to me, and I did what I had to do to get my hands on this. Now I am the GREATEST PRO WRESTLER walkin' the Earth today! This is my stage, this is my theater, you are my puppets! When I pulled those marionette strings, and I moved your emotions, and I played with them, and honestly it's 'cause I get off on it. I hate each and every single one of you with a thousand burns and I will not stop… I will not stop until I prove that I am better than you, that I am better than Low Ki, that I am better than AJ Styles! I'm better than Samoa Joe. Ladies and gentlemen, the champ is here! You don't have to love it, but you better learn to accept it. 'Cause I'm taking this with me, and there's not a single person in that locker room that can stop me!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Ring of Honor, Death Before Dishonor III. June 18th, 2005.
This promo took place directly after Punk defeated Austin Aries for the ROH World Championship proceeding to turn the, at the time face, Punk heel. Directly after this promo Christopher Daniels made his first appearance in ROH in over a year to challenge for the belt. This promo also made reference to an old parable http://www.snopes.com/critters/malice/scorpion.htm about an animal doing an act of kindness to another creature that is venomous and being surprised when the animal injects the venom to the creature after the act of kindness who then proceeds to explain it is their nature to perform the act.
Ring of Honor

Love , Life , Hate , People

“The performance of business leaders during the next decade will play a major role in determining not only business but political and social trends for a long time to come. Here are some of the principal reasons:
- Business leaders control the economic well-being of and stockholder.
- The course of business shapes public opinion.
- Business leaders shape public opinion.
So, in addition to his or her prime responsibility of managing his or her enterprise at a profit, the business leader of today is faced with new and larger responsibilities. And, at the same time, the job of managing his or her enterprise at a profit is increasing in complexity. Consequently, the imposition of additional responsibilities makes the nation’s task of developing an adequate number of properly equipped executive leaders a staggering one indeed.”

Marvin Bower (1903–2003) American business theorist

Marvin Bower (1949) The development of executive leadership. Harvard University. Graduate School of Business Administration. p. v

Business , Time

“How pleasant it is to respect people! When I see books, I am not concerned with how the authors loved or played cards; I see only their marvelous works.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Какое наслаждение уважать людей! Когда я вижу книги, мне нет дела до того, как авторы любили, играли в карты, я вижу только их изумительные дела.
Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

Love , People , Books

“Don't play for safety. It's the most dangerous thing in the world.”

Hugh Walpole (1884–1941) New Zealand writer

Fortitude (1913)

World

“I saw The Lonely Guy all by myself. It was one of those Saturday afternoons where the snow is coming down gray and mean, and you can't even get a decent recorded message on the answering machines of strangers … "Good luck," an usher told me. "You're going to need it." He was right … The Lonely Guy is the kind of movie that seems to have been made to play in empty theaters on overcast January afternoons … [It] is the kind of movie that inspires you to distract yourself by counting the commercial products visible on the screen, and speculating about whether their manufacturers paid fees to have them worked into the movie. I counted two Diet 7-Ups, two Tabs, and Steve Martin.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-lonely-guy-1984 of The Lonely Guy (1 January 1984)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Guy

“The difference between us and terrorists is supposed to be that we play by these rules, even if they don't. No, I haven't forgotten Hiroshima and My Lai. The American way of war has often been brutal, but at least our warriors are supposed to fight with honor and can be punished if they don't. There is no warrior's honor among terrorists.”

Michael Ignatieff (1947) professor at Harvard Kennedy School and former Canadian politician

New York Times magazine op-ed piece, May 2, 2004

War , Way , Fight

“That was the only time my mother saw me on stage. At one point in the play I am strangled and my mother jumped from her seat and screamed: 'No. You will not get away with murder. You cannot do this to my daughter.' Friends explained to her that this was not for real — that we were acting. But she made such a fuss. Everyone was so embarrassed. On stage my heart sank.”

Miriam Makeba (1932–2008) South African singer and civil rights activist

As quoted in Nkrumah, Gamal (1–7 November 2001)
Al-Ahram Weekly interview (2001)

Time , Heart , Daughters

“Somebody say once that I like to goof off; that I'm lazy because I don't play winter ball and make a habit of reporting late to spring training. What these fellows don't know is that I have no time for winter ball. When I return home to Puerto Rico after the baseball season, I open my camp right away. It is a camp for boys, where they can come and learn how to play baseball. They come from all ages and get a lot of help. Cepeda spends some time with me. He teaches how to play first base. José Santiago shows them how to pitch. 'Chito' Rios, he comes from Mayagüez and gives base running instruction. Even Frank Lane has been there and talked to my kids. Jim Brown has been there, and Tommy Nobis, to talk football, although most of our kids have little interest in football. But they like to hear these fellows. Bill Russell has been there; so have Oscar Robertson and all the Harlem Globetrotters. The boys love it, and I really believe it has meant a lot in the development of some fine young men for later life.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "All-Star Case of Roberto Clemente"
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1970</big>

Love , Life , Men , Age

“Mere grace is not enough: a play should thrill
The hearer's soul, and move it at its will.”
Non satis est pulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto Et, quocumque uolent, animum auditoris agunto.

Horace Ars Poetica

Source: Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC), Line 99 (tr. John Conington)

Soul

“Larry Bird is what keeps me going. He's my measuring stick. I don't think I would be as interested in the game if I weren't trying to play better than him.”

Larry Bird (1956) basketball player and coach

Magic Johnson — reported in Alan Goldstein (February 7, 1988) "Five at the Top of Their Game; Bird, Johnson aren't alone anymore as best players in the NBA", Baltimore Sun, p. 19.
About

Game , Bird , Thinking

“I am startled, occasionally, to find “intelligence” used as the antithesis of “feeling”, as though the two played against each other. Nothing could be further from the truth. No intelligent interpretation is lacking in emotional values. What this probably means is that, depending on gifts and degree of maturity, some natures emphasize brain over heart. Where such an imbalance occurs, it must be corrected by conscious and concentrated application to emotional content. If an interpretation is unduly cerebral, liveness and color can be infused into it by attention to whether the theme is now in the right hand, now in the left; whether it is supported by an accompaniment which has significance of its own, or merely hums along.”

Benno Moiseiwitsch (1890–1963) British musician

Playing in the Grand Style (1950)

Truth , Color , Feeling , Intelligence

“The glimmer continued to play about the vault of heaven. To the west one could see the roofs of nearby mansions and the tower of Our Lady's Church silhouetted against the dull red glow of embers in the darkness of the night.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part III: Fire in Copenhagen

Night

“The gods were fighting over her children but she could not seek the help of any of them. And she had so much choice. She had grown up a Buddhist, her ex-husband was alleged a Moslem when he died, her own sister was a Christian - so many options for salvation. […] Chelsea would have settled for solace through prayer. But she did not believe that there was an invisible hand behind the farce that was her life's play. At the very least she did not believe in a benevolent God. […] Surely it was better to lay the blame for the machinations of fate at the door of chance?”

Shamini Flint book Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder

Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder, Cap 13

Life , God , Fate , Children

“Another characteristic of the idler's work is that it looks suspiciously like play. This, again, makes the non-idler feel uncomfortable. Victims of the Protestant work ethic would like all work to be unpleasant. They feel that work is a curse, that we must suffer on this earth to earn our place in the next. The idler, on the other hand, sees no reason not to use his brain to organise a life for himself where his play is his work, and so attempt to create his own little paradise in the here and now.”

Tom Hodgkinson (1968) British writer

“Idleness and Industry,” The Idler.

Life , Feeling , Suffering

“My notion about any artist is that we honor him best by reading him, by playing his music, by seeing his plays or by looking at his pictures. We don't need to fall all over ourselves with adjectives and epithets. Let's play him more.”

Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) Historian

Interview with John C. Tibbetts http://www.murphywong.net/barzuncentennial/JohnCTibbetts.htm (1986-12-04)

Music , Reading

“I think he had the best eye, best stance and sharpest cut of all the big leaguers playing in Puerto Rico. He also field real good and throw like a bullet.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Recalling his boyhood idol Monte Irvin, as quoted in "CHANGE OF PACE: Scribes Now Rate Clemente as 'Best'" by Bill Nunn, Jr., in The New Pittsburgh Courier (February 24, 1962)
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1962</big>

Thinking

“To put it one way, a collection of Shakespeare's plays is richer than a phone book that uses the same number of letters; to put it another, the essence of information lies in the relationships among bits, not their sheer number.”

Hans Christian von Baeyer (1938) American physicist

Source: Information, The New Language of Science (2003), Chapter 17, Bioinformatics, Biology meets information technology, p. 145

Books , Way

“She followed him around where he played his guitar
Till he got so popular they made him a star
Then she could only see him on a TV screen
And hoped someday that he'd come back to New Orleans
Everybody liked her and was knocking on wood
But soon there came a baby for Lady B. Goode”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Lady B. Goode" (2017)
Song lyrics

Hope , Star , Baby

“The music broke from the piano like clear cold water from a prophet-touched rock, pouring and splashing around us while her fingers leaped and spread, curled and stiffened and melted and flickered in magic pass and streaked lightning above the keyboard. Never before had she played for me… because we were lovers now, was she free to play…?”

Richard Bach book The Bridge Across Forever

The Bridge Across Forever (1984)

Music , Lovers , Water

“More importantly however, is that a new generation of leaders is emerging in Africa who does not want to approach the world with a begging bowl. Leaders who want to engage the world as partners; leaders who are prepared to take responsibilities for the problems of their countries and continent; leaders who recognize the enormous opportunities that abound in the world and are eager to connect Africa to the centres of those opportunities; leaders who want to harness the huge resources of Africa to play on the global stage; leaders who are not content to ask, ‘what can the rest of the world do for us', but rather ‘what can we do with the rest of the world.”

Bukola Saraki (1962) Nigerian politician

Beyond Natural Resources (2005)

World , Problem , Country

“When entering the studio, I don't know what will happen. I do a so-called trip into myself: I sit down at the piano and the melody might start to evolve from my playing or then I might start to sing it. At that stage I do not yet have clear ideas about what kind of emotions I would like to express. Until I play the completed piece to Roma and Nicky and when I observe their reactions, the music gets its meaning…”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Anna interview (2005)

Music , Idea , Singing

“Time seems cold, each day we grey away. Believe the lines that we’ve been told, 'Lose our way lose yesterday’, they say, but who are they? Who are they anyway? They didn’t hear us play at eight years old.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"Eight Years Old"
Out Seeing The Fields (2007)

Way , Time

“Playing gay in the theater is more fulfilling than on film because you can create a whole character and a backstory and you get to chip away at something over a long period of time. When you’re acting on film you sort of have one afternoon in front of a crew to just do it. And you don’t want to then be too overt and like that stereotype. But when I was doing A Paris Letter with Josh [Radnor], I was playing someone overtly flamboyant from the ’60s seducing him, and if I did that on film, I think it would look like I was acting too hard. It’s one of the fun things one wants to do as an actor, to play the flamboyant gay guy. But when you are gay that ends up being offensive to people. Say I was asked to play a flamboyant steward in an Airplane!–type farce. It would be a difficult decision to say yes to that role at this point because a lot of people would accuse me of making a mockery of gay people.”

Neil Patrick Harris (1973) American actor and host

Out Magazine; September 2008.

People , Guy , Thinking , Decision

“Over 17 years I have played hockey, learned to row, I've been a dog, got blown up… It satisfies the 5 year-old intellectual curiosity, you know? Where I can do anything I want for six months and then move on.”

Joshua Jackson (1978) Canadian actor

As quoted in Entertainment Weekly (September 2nd, 2005)

Dogs , Learning , Hockey

“Playing in shows all around the world takes tons of energy. Being a vegetarian has made a huge difference. Not only is a vegetarian lifestyle healthier, it's better for the animals and for the environment. And no matter where you find yourself on the planet, you can always find a great veggie meal.”

Phil Collen (1957) British musician

"Phil Collen: Vegetarian Testimonial," video ad for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (26 August 2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-JsYIujaAM.

World , Animals

“Koch was one of the sincere Socialists in the movement. He was a follower of Gregor Strasser, like most of the North German bosses. ‘Of course the world will become socialistic,’ he said to me once when I went to see him at Konigsberg. ‘Capitalism has done for itself. Do you suppose that Hitler can stop at this reactionary beginning? My dear man, many things have to happen yet. Your Junker cousins, we shall kill the lot of them,’ he added, laughing. ‘We shall sweep them all away. Peasants must take over; we are settling them on the land. The things the slack Sozis (Socialists) never carried out, we shall put through. Away with the Junkers and the captains of industry! Do you suppose we were just talking through our hats about nationalizing the banks and abolishing the stock exchange and all that?… And if that whimpering instrument Hitler doesn't squeak out our tune, we shall get another fiddle to play on.”

Hermann Rauschning (1887–1982) German politician

Source: Men in Chaos (1942), p. 89

World , Sincerity

“It cannot be emphasized too strongly that playing can pull many a director and cast out of a tight spot, freeing all of them from the fear-producing trap of memorizing, characterizing and interpreting. This playing draws upon a very important, almost forgotten, little understood or utilized, and greatly maligned life-giving force --- passion!”

Viola Spolin (1906–1994) American academic and acting theorist

Theater Games for Rehearsal - A Director's Handbook(1988), Northwestern University Press, Preface

Life , Fear , Passion , Drawing

“My dream is chess played in every school in India. The Soviets would include a chessboard along with the bride’s trousseau to ensure that the children born of that marriage knew the rules of chess.”

Viswanathan Anand (1969) Indian chess player

page=295
Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower

Marriage , Children , School , Dreams

“In the past—that is, for most people it is still the present-the individual is everything, everything is directed at maintaining his life and improving his existence, everything focuses on him. … In socialism of the future, on the other hand, what counts is the whole, the community of the Volk. The individual and his life play only a subsidiary role. He can be sacrificed—he is prepared to sacrifice himself should the whole demand it.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Source: Disputed, Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant (1978), p. 16

Life , People , Communication , Past

“They (Dynamo) won't let me play, but they won't let me change teams either. There were offers from other teams, but Dynamo did not find them satisfactory. They told me I'm an expensive player.”

Dmitri Bulykin (1979) Russian association football player

Дмитрий БУЛЫКИН: "ВЕРНУСЬ И ПОСВЯЩУ ПЕРВЫЙ ГОЛ ВСЕМ, КТО В МЕНЯ ВЕРИТ" http://www.sport-express.ru/newspaper/2007-05-31/2_5/

Change

“Nobody is going to be his successor, no one can replace Kumble. He is one of the finest leg-spinners in the world. Over the years he had developed variety in his bowling by working hard. I rate him very high. I do not think it was because of any sort of pressure. Media is going to be with you every time. If you play well they will praise you and they will criticise you if you play badly. And I think Kumble has taken it well in his stride. At the end of the day he is a gentleman.”

Anil Kumble (1970) Former Indian cricketer

By Madan Lal.
Kumble Calls it a Day: Quotes... For and By Kumble...

World , Thinking , Time

“Many of us go through life feeling as an actor might feel who does not like his part, and does not believe in the play.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Theater

Life , Feeling , Parting

“Is this the visitor from the wrong side
of the mirror? Or the shape
that suddenly flitted past my window?
Is it the new moon playing tricks,
or is someone really standing there again
between the stove and the cupboard?”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Poem without a Hero (1963)

Past

“I was really into sci-fi books as a kid. My dad is a physicist and he used to take my brothers and I into his lab when we were little. We played games with liquid nitrogen and Van de Graaff generators. He had the keys to the observatory at St Andrew's University and he'd get us up in the middle of the night to show us Halley's Comet. That's partly why the album is called Eye To The Telescope.”

KT Tunstall (1975) Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist

KTTunstall.com

Books , Game , Universe , Night

“Carl Friedrich Gauss, often rated the greatest mathematician of all time, played the market. On a salary of 1,000 thalers a year, Euler left an estate of 170,587 thalers in cash and securities. Nothing is known of Gauss's investment methods.”

William Poundstone (1955) American writer

Part Three, Arbitrage, This Is Not the Time To Buy Stocks, p. 132
Fortune's Formula (2005)

Time

“Bad boys have long fascinated audiences as well as storytellers, whatever the medium. Such rebels, often without causes beyond self-gratification, have been at the center of much of contemporary popular culture. One of the paradigms for such dramatized morality tales is Mozart's magnificent "Don Giovanni," whose musical and theatrical turns evoked awe and laughter and terror from the more that 1,500 music fans who on Saturday night flocked to Lawrence's Lied Center for the Mozart Festival Opera production. The libertine is thoroughly disreputable. Nonetheless, we look on in fascination because of his devilish smile, dashing good looks, ready wit, and the audacity of his hyper-inflated ego. If you can imagine a young Jack Nicholson with mustache, cape and a flair for sword play, you've got it. Lithuanian baritone Vytautas Juozapaitis gave the Don appropriate swagger and voice. He also brought a comic twist that gave the roué a touch of the trickster. Stepping out of character for a second in the midst of a briskly paced recitative, he paused, turned, and looked up at the supertitled English translation as if to check his lines. It was a joke shared by all. The pleasure of performing, even in the opera's most dramatic moments, was evident.”

Vytautas Juozapaitis (1963) Lithuanian opera singer

Chuck Berg, "Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' triumphs", Topeka Capital Journal (February, 2007) http://www.jennykellyproductions.com/prod_mozart_review.htm

Pleasure , Smile , Music , Imagination

“I don’t think any heroine’s marital status matters. On TV, it’s all about the character. We have so many married actresses playing lead roles on TV shows. We are probably more married on TV than in real life.”

Drashti Dhami (1985) Indian television actress and model

View on marriage http://www.hindustantimes.com/tv/didn-t-get-overwhelming-film-offers-drashti-dhami/story-y8fDhD9tpuiZqM8HbfnGBK.html

Life , Thinking

“There's no way I can go play for the Yankees, but I know they are going to come after me hard. … It's definitely not the most important thing to go out there for the top dollar, which the Yankees are going to offer me. It's not what I need.”

Johnny Damon (1973) American professional baseball outfielder

"Notes: Damon ponders the future" at MLB.com (1 May 2005) http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050501&content_id=1034754&vkey=news_bos&fext=.jsp&c_id=bos

Way

“A spurious democracy has influenced both our research methods (I am sometimes tempted to define “validity” as part of the context of an experiment demanding so little in the way of esoteric gift that any number can play at it, provided they have taken a certain number of courses) and our research subjects”

David Riesman (1909–2002) American Sociologist

it would be deemed snobbish to investigate only the best people
“Clinical and Cultural Aspects of the Aging Process,” p. 485
Individualism Reconsidered (1954)

People , Way , Democracy , Parting

“Be conscious first of thyself within, then think and act. All living thought is a world in preparation; all real act is a thought manifested. The material world exists because an Idea began to play in divine self-consciousness.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Glimpses (1916-17)

World , Idea , Thinking

“True artistic experience is never passive, for the spectator is obliged to participate, as it were, in the continuous or discontinuous variations of proportions, positions, lines and planes. Moreover, he must see clearly how this play of repeated or non-repeated changes may give rise to a new harmony of relations which will constitute the unity of the work. Every part becomes organized into a whole with the other parts. All the parts contribute to the unity of the composition, none of them assuming a dominant place in the whole.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Quote from 'Grundbegriffe der neuen Gestaltenden Kunst', essay by Van Doesburg (published between 1921-23 in De Stijl) - last Chapter; as quoted in 'Fifty Years of Accomplishment, From Kandinsky to Jackson Pollock', by Michel Seuphor, Dell Publishing Co. 1964, p. 86
1920 – 1926

Change , Parting

“Even when I was a kid, my imaginary friend would play with the kid across the street. I'd be like, "Hey, so I guess I'll see you later," and he's, like, "Whatever, queer."”

Daniel Tosh (1975) American stand-up comedian

That's a hate crime!
Comedy Central Presents: Daniel Tosh (2003)

Hate

“Harry Dresden: There’s power in the night. There’s terror in the darkness. Despite all our accumulated history, learning, and experience, we remember. We remember times when we were too small to reach the light switch on the wall, and when the darkness itself was enough to make us cry out in fear. Get a good ways out from civilization-say, miles and miles away on a lightless lake-and the darkness is there, waiting. Twilight means more than just time to call the children in from playing outside. Fading light means more than just the end of another day. Night is when terrible things emerge from their sleep and seek soft flesh and hot blood. Night is when unseen beings with no regard for what our people have built and no place in what we have deemed the natural order look in at our world from outside, and think dark and alien thoughts. And sometimes, just sometimes, they do things.”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

Source: The Dresden Files, Turn Coat (2009), Chapter 40

Children , People , World , Fear

“What I intend to do is lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong…. I think one of the things that people want us to do here is to play a blame game. We've got to solve problems. We're problem-solvers. There will be ample time for people to figure out what went right and what went wrong. What I'm interested in is helping save lives. That's what I want to do.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Answering a question regarding Katrina aftermath and what went wrong with government response — September 6, 2005. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050906.html
2000s, 2005

People , Game , Problem , Thinking

“What do we mean by “understanding” something? We can imagine that this complicated array of moving things which constitutes “the world” is something like a great chess game being played by the gods, and we are observers of the game. We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics. Even if we knew every rule, however, we might not be able to understand why a particular move is made in the game, merely because it is too complicated and our minds are limited. If you play chess you must know that it is easy to learn all the rules, and yet it is often very hard to select the best move or to understand why a player moves as he does. So it is in nature, only much more so.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

volume I; lecture 2, "Basic Physics"; section 2-1, "Introduction"; p. 2-1
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

God , World , Imagination , Game

“Did you know babies are nauseated by the smell of a clean shirt? You put on something from the cleaners, they're gonna spit up just like that. My wardrobe looks like we have condors living in our yard. And if you play with 'em too hard, they'll spew like a can of beer. I like to shake my daughter up, then hand her to people I don't like. "Hold her just a minute, would you?"”

Jeff Foxworthy (1958) American stand-up comedian

You Might Be a Redneck If… (1993)

People , Beer , Baby , Daughters

“Male mastery in marriage is a social illusion, nurtured by women exhorting their creations to play and walk. At the emotional heart of every marriage is a pietà of mother and son.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 53

Women , Marriage , Heart

“Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before. I have not a word to say against contented people so long as they keep quiet.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

"On Getting On in the World".
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

People , Age , Way , Intelligence

“Let dull critics feed upon the carcasses of plays; give me the taste and the dressing.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

6 February 1752
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

“It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Variants: It should be noted that the games of children are not games, and must be considered as their most serious actions.
For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.
Book I, Ch. 23
Attributed

Children , Game

“The great Egyptian age is but a remnant of The Atlantian culture.
The antediluvian kings colonised the world
All the gods who play in the mythological dramas
In all legends from all lands were from fair Atlantis.
Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth.
On board were the Twelve:
The Poet, the Physician, the Farmer, the Scientist,
The Magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.
Though gods they were”

Donovan (1946) Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist

Spoken prelude (varies slightly among versions)
Atlantis (1968)

God , Fate , Age , World

“"Doing science," particularly the synthesis of disparate ideas, is not as arcane as it is often made out to be. Discipline and taste play a vital role, but the activity is familiar to anyone who has made some effort to be creative.”

John H. Holland (1929–2015) US university professor

Preface, p. xix
Hidden Order - How Adaptation Builds Complexity (1995)

Idea , Effort , Science

Quotes about play page 37

Quotes about play
page 37