Quotes about play
page 4

Marcus Garvey photo

“When the war started in Abyssinia all Negro nationalists looked with hope to Haile Selassie. They spoke for him, they prayed for him, they sung for him, they did everything to hold up his hands, as Aaron did for Moses; but whilst the Negro peoples of the world were praying for the success of Abyssinia this little Emperor was undermining the fabric of his own kingdom by playing the fool with white men, having them advising him[, ] having them telling him what to do, how to surrender, how to call off the successful thrusts of his [Race] against the Italian invaders. Yes, they were telling him how to prepare his flight, and like an imbecilic child he followed every advice and then ultimately ran away from his country to England, leaving his people to be massacred by the Italians, and leaving the serious white world to laugh at every Negro and repeat the charge and snare - "he is incompetent," "we told you so." Indeed Haile Selassie has proved the incompetence of the Negro for political authority, but thank God there are Negroes who realise that Haile Selassie did not represent the truest qualities of the Negro race. How could he, when he wanted to play white? How could he, when he surrounded himself with white influence? How could he, when in a modern world, and in a progressive civilization, he preferred a slave State of black men than a free democratic country where the black citizens could rise to the same opportunities as white citizens in their democracies?”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

The Failure of Haile Selassie as Emperor in The Blackman, April, 1937.

Max Ernst photo
Kurt Cobain photo

“I can't play [guitar] like Pete Townshend. The flip side of that is that Pete Townshend could probably never have played like me.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

As quoted in Fender Frontline Magazine (Fall 1994).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print

Jagadish Chandra Bose photo
Jascha Heifetz photo

“I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven.”

Jascha Heifetz (1901–1987) Lithuanian violinist

Heifetz official web site http://www.jaschaheifetz.com/about/quotes.html

George Steiner photo
Wangari Maathai photo
Lady Gaga photo
Vladimir Horowitz photo
Steven Weinberg photo
Norah Jones photo

“I love the things that you've given me
I cherish you my dear country
But sometimes I don't understand the way we play”

Norah Jones (1979) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

"My Dear Country", Not Too Late (2007)
Song lyrics

Flea (musician) photo
Gabriel Marcel photo
Benjamin Franklin photo

“We do not quit playing because we grow old, we grow old because we quit playing.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

This is an anonymous modern quip which is a variant of a statement by G. Stanley Hall, in Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education (1904):
: Men grow old because they stop playing, and not conversely.
Misattributed

Bobby Fischer photo
Fred Dibnah photo

“Steeplejacking's a bit of a spasmodic job, so you can play with your steam engine instead. It's a bit like being very rich.”

Fred Dibnah (1938–2004) English steeplejack and television personality, with a keen interest in mechanical engineering

Unsourced

W.B. Yeats photo

“All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That’s Ophelia, that Cordelia.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Lapis Lazuli http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1522/, st. 2
Last Poems (1936-1939)

John Lennon photo
Clint Eastwood photo
Albert Pujols photo

“I learned to play (baseball) on the streets in the Dominican Republic when I was 8 yrs old.”

Albert Pujols (1980) Dominican-American baseball player

When asked about how he learned to play baseball. http://sports.ign.com/articles/709/709384p1.html

Ian McCulloch photo
Barack Obama photo

“I'm LeBron, baby. I can play on this level. I got some game.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

quoted by David Mendell. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/06/25/obama-im-lebron-baby-i-ca_n_53563.html
2004

Kanye West photo
Paul Sérusier photo
Rene Balcer photo

“If you're going to play stickball in Canarsie you better learn Brooklyn rules.”

Rene Balcer (1954) screenwriter, producer and director

ADA Jack McCoy in the Law & Order episode Blue Bamboo.
Law & Order

Edvard Munch photo
Kurt Schwitters photo
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Dmitri Shostakovich photo
Ghalib photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Matthew Perry (actor) photo

“I thought it would be interesting if I came back to television to play somebody somewhat dark. What's bizarre is that we're shooting seven feet from the 'Friends' stage. I know how long it takes to get here from my house.”

Matthew Perry (actor) (1969) American actor

Marc Peyser (September 4, 2006) "Falling for Fall: What's Cool and Coming Your Way: Summer's ending. Get over it. Here's a look at the riches of autumn. First up, 'West Wing' creator Aaron Sorkin rides again with the terrific TV drama 'Studio 60.'", Newsweek, Newsweek Inc., p. 54.

Steven Weinberg photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo
Arlo Guthrie photo
Ronald Reagan photo
Ozzy Osbourne photo

“War is just another game
Tailor made for the insane
But make a threat of their annihilation
And nobody wants to play
If that's the only thing that keeps the peace
Then thank God for the bomb”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

Thank God for the Bomb written by Robert John Daisley, Ozzy Osbourne, John Osbourne, Jake Williams, Robert Daisley
Song lyrics, The Ultimate Sin (1986)

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Mark Twain photo
Aleksandr Pushkin photo
Orson Welles photo
Mark Twain photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Alfred Cortot photo
Nicolas Chamfort photo
Barack Obama photo

“Let's not play games. What I was suggesting — you're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

"Obama's verbal slip fuels his critics" http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/07/obama-verbal-slip-fuels-his-critics/?page=all by Christina Bellantoni, The Washington Times (7 September 2008)
2008

Thomas Szasz photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo

“We have no choice, we people of the United States, as to whether or not we shall play a great part in the world. That has been determined to us by fate, by the march of events. We have to play that part. All that we can decide is whether we shall play it well or ill.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Address at Mechanics' Pavilion San Francisco May 13 1903 books.google.de http://books.google.de/books?id=zSJNPOphC_MC&pg=PA98
Quoted in The Audacity of Hope (2006) by Barack Obama, p. 282 as follows: The United States of America has not the option as to whether it will or it will not play a great part in the world … It must play a great part. All that it can decide is whether it will play that part well or badly.
1910s

Mikhail Sholokhov photo
Suman Pokhrel photo
Shahrukh Khan photo

“I am not confident unless I am playing someone else.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Malavika Sangghvi

Abraham Lincoln photo

“In the beginning of the year 1854 a new policy was inaugurated with the avowed object and confident promise that it would entirely and forever put an end to the Slavery agitation. It was again and again declared that under this policy, when once successfully established, the country would be forever rid of this whole question. Yet under the operation of that policy this agitation has not only not ceased, but it has been constantly augmented. And this too, although, from the day of its introduction, its friends, who promised that it would wholly end all agitation, constantly insisted, down to the time that the Lecompton bill was introduced, that it was working admirably, and that its inevitable tendency was to remove the question forever from the politics of the country. Can you call to mind any Democratic speech, made after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, down to the time of the Lecompton bill, in which it was not predicted that the Slavery agitation was just at an end; that "the abolition excitement was played out," "the Kansas question was dead," "they have made the most they can out of this question and it is now forever settled."”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

But since the Lecompton bill no Democrat, within my experience, has ever pretended that he could see the end. That cry has been dropped. They themselves do not pretend, now, that the agitation of this subject has come to an end yet.
1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)

Henry M. Jackson photo

“The danger of Americans being killed, the danger of divisiveness that would accrue from those developments … are all too real. A superpower should not play that kind of role in a cauldron of trouble, because sooner or later we are going to get hurt.”

Henry M. Jackson (1912–1983) American politician

on Reagan's 1982 decision to send troops to Lebanon) Harrop, Froma. " Dems Need Another Scoop Jackson http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-11_23_05_FH.html", RealClearPolitics, 11-23-2005.

Bertrand Russell photo

“The best life is the one in which the creative impulses play the largest part and the possessive impulses the smallest.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1910s, Political Ideals (1917)

Bobby Fischer photo
Taylor Swift photo
Tom Baker photo
Stefan Zweig photo
Nikola Tesla photo
William Shatner photo

“I'm not a Starfleet commander, or T. J. Hooker. I don't live on Starship NCC-170… [some audience members say "1"], or own a phaser. I don't know anybody named Bones, Sulu, or Spock [picture of Dr. Benjamin Spock is shown on screen behind him]. And no, I've never had green alien sex, but I'm sure it'd be quite an evening. [Pomp and Circumstance begins playing. ] I speak English and French, not Klingon! I drink Labatt's, not Romulan Ale! And when someone says to me 'live long and prosper', I seriously mean it when I say, 'get a life'. My doctor's name is not McCoy, it's Ginsberg [nude picture of Dr. Ginsberg shown on screen]. And tribbles were puppets, not real animals. PUPPETS! And when I speak, I never, ever talk like Every. Word. Is. Its. Own. Sentence. I live in California, but I was raised in Montreal. And I believe in Priceline. com, where you never have to pay full price for airline tickets, hotels, and car rentals! I've appeared on stage at Stratford, at Carnegie Hall, Albert Hall, and the Monkland Theatre in NDG. And, yes, I've gone where no man has gone before, but… I was in Mexico and her father gave me permission! My name is William Shatner, and I am Canadian!”

William Shatner (1931) Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author, and film director

From a Just for Laughs appearance in a parody of the popular Molson "I Am Canadian" commercials (21 July 2007) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1648058156561008324&q=i+am+canadian.

Albert Einstein photo
Vladimir Nabokov photo

“Play! Invent the world! Invent reality!”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Look at the Harlequins! (1974).

Steve Shutt photo

“One highlight I have was playing with all the great players in Montreal. They were not only great players but they were great people. If you look around, a lot of these guys are still in the game. Not only have they been successful with the Montreal Canadiens, but they've helped a lot of other organizations.”

Steve Shutt (1952) ice hockey player

Quoted in Kevin Shea, "One on One with Steve Shutt," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep199303.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2004-01-10)
Shutt comments on playing with players like Ken Dryden, Bob Gainey, Jacques Lemaire, Larry Robinson, Serge Savard, Rejean Houle and Mario Tremblay.

John Lennon photo
Frank Zappa photo
Antonin Scalia photo

“If one assumes, however, that the PGA TOUR has some legal obligation to play classic, Platonic golf—and if one assumes the correctness of all the other wrong turns the Court has made to get to this point—then we Justices must confront what is indeed an awesome responsibility. It has been rendered the solemn duty of the Supreme Court of the United States, laid upon it by Congress in pursuance of the Federal Government's power [t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, to decide What Is Golf. I am sure that the Framers of the Constitution, aware of the 1457 edict of King James II of Scotland prohibiting golf because it interfered with the practice of archery, fully expected that sooner or later the paths of golf and government, the law and the links, would once again cross, and that the judges of this august Court would some day have to wrestle with that age-old jurisprudential question, for which their years of study in the law have so well prepared them: Is someone riding around a golf course from shot to shot really a golfer? The answer, we learn, is yes. The Court ultimately concludes, and it will henceforth be the Law of the Land, that walking is not a fundamental aspect of golf.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin, 532 U.S. 661 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=00-24 (2001) (dissenting).
2000s

John Locke photo
Barack Obama photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Thelonious Monk photo
Rabindranath Tagore photo

“In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play, and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

96
Gitanjali http://www.spiritualbee.com/gitanjali-poems-of-tagore/ (1912)

Shigeru Miyamoto photo
Klaus Meine photo
Pat Metheny photo

“More and more as time has gone on, I realize that playing is really more about listening than it is about playing.”

Pat Metheny (1954) American jazz musician

'We Live Here' DVD Interview

Edward Bernays photo
Ben Kowalewicz photo

“Nothing says inspiration like a plane flying over your head while you're playing.”

Ben Kowalewicz (1975) musician

From "The Diary of Billy Talent":

Anthony de Mello photo
Robert Fripp photo

“Creative work is serious play.”

Robert Fripp (1946) English guitarist, composer and record producer

Guitar Craft Monograph III: Aphorisms, Oct. 27 1988

Vladimir Nabokov photo

“Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with!”

Lolita (1955)

Barack Obama photo
Anil Kumble photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Hans Zimmer photo

“There was a dodgy digital period when things didn't sound that great, but now we are figuring that out. The basics haven't changed, which is talented human beings playing together in a room.”

Hans Zimmer (1957) German film composer and music producer

Source http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13964918.

Sam Neill photo
Nikolai Gogol photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Ozzy Osbourne photo

“I warned you then and I'm warning you now
If you mess with me you're playing with fire
Winds of change that are fanning the flames
Will carry you to your funeral pyre”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

The Ultimate Sin, written by Robert John Daisley, Ozzy Osbourne, John Osbourne, Jake Williams, Robert Daisley
Song lyrics, The Ultimate Sin (1986)

Kanye West photo

“I had dreams of the game/Someday I'd play Kobe/I'd walk up to Puff and he don't really know me.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

https://www.florperfumes.com.br/perfume-pulse-beyonce-feminino Perfume Pulse Beyonce
Ego
Lyrics, Above and Beyoncé: Video Collection & Dance Mixes (2009)

David Tennant photo

“I was once asked for my autograph in the shower on one of my rare visits to the gym. I was washing my hair, facing the wall, when I was tapped on the shoulder so already it's quite inappropriate. I turned round and there was another naked man standing there with a piece of paper. And I think 'if you can't see how inappropriate this I am just going to have to play along' so I took the paper, which is slowly becoming mulch, and carved my name in it.”

David Tennant (1971) Scottish actor

David Tennant on fan obsession, The Graham Norton Show, 14 April 2011
Source: Graham Norton welcomes David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Josh Groban and Jon Richardson, BBC Press Office, 15 April 2011, 15 April 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/04_april/15/norton.shtml,

Richard Feynman photo

“On the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics.”

statement after an introduction mentioning that he played bongo drums; Messenger Lectures at Cornell University, p. 13
The Character of Physical Law (1965)

Humbert Wolfe photo

“The children play
At hide and seek
About the monument
To Speke.
And why should the dead
Explorer mind
Who has nothing to seek
And nothing to find?”

Humbert Wolfe (1885–1940) English poet

"Speke", from Kensington Gardens (London: Ernest Benn, [1924] 1927) p. 50.

José Saramago photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Justin Bieber photo

“there is time to play…and then there are times to work hard and get my fans an album.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Message to his fans via Twitter https://twitter.com/justinbieber/status/174003175009951746 26 February, 2012

Girish Raghunath Karnad photo

“I have been lucky in having multipronged career. You know how I have been an actor, a publisher, a film maker. But in none of these fields have I felt quite as much at home as play writing.”

Girish Raghunath Karnad (1938–2019) Indian playwright

Source: [Sahu, Nandini title=The Post-colonial Space: Writing the Self and the Nation, http://books.google.com/books?id=xs_tj0tDnnwC&pg=PA59, 2007, Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 978-81-269-0777-9, 117-18]

Noam Chomsky photo