Quotes from Johan Huizinga

You only live a short time... and you are dead a long time.

It is impossible to strive for the heroic life. The title of hero is bestowed by the survivors upon the fallen, who themselves know nothing of heroism.

Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present, the more intense that yearning.

A crude mind could easily think: something is valid, therefore it is true.

Physical nature lies at our feet shackled with a hundred chains. What of the control of human nature? Do not point to the triumphs of psychiatry, social services or the war against crime. Domination of human nature can only mean the domination of every man by himself.

Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.

Culture must have its ultimate aim in the metaphysical or it will cease to be culture.

Whether the aim is in heaven or on earth, wisdom or wealth, the essential condition of its pursuit and attainment is always security and order.

The repudiation of the primacy of understanding means the repudiation of the norms of judgment as well, and hence the abandonment of all ethical standards.

Play is a uniquely adaptive act, not subordinate to some other adaptive act, but with a special function of its own in human experience.

An aristocratic culture does not advertise its emotions. In its forms of expression it is sober and reserved. Its general attitude is stoic.

History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.

History creates comprehensibility primarily by arranging facts meaningfully and only in a very limited sense by establishing strict causal connections.

The second fundamental feature of culture is that all culture has an element of striving.

What the study of history and artistic creation have in common is a mode of forming images.

Ha tévedni emberi dolog, miért neveznénk az embert szerencsétlennek, amiért téved, ha egyszer így született, ilyennek teremtették, s ez általában a sorsa.

Azt, amikor a szellem széttöri a bilincseit, menekülést keres, és szabadságra vágyik. Ez tehát a boldogság, egyben azonban elszakadás a földi dolgoktól, s a legnagyobb bölcsesség is. Az igazi boldogság az éntÅ'l való megszabadulás, a szeretÅ'k boldogsága, akiket Platón mindenki közül a legboldogabbnak nevez.

For many years the conviction has grown upon me that civilization arises and unfolds in and as play.

De a sors tovább ?z minket.

Nec si quot placidis ignea noctibus Scintillant tacito sydera culmine, Nec si quot tepidum flante Favonio Ver suffundit humo rosas, Tot sint ora mihi...

El club corresponde al juego como el sombrero a la cabeza

Los juegos de azar hay que considerarlos como estériles para la cultura. Ninguna riqueza aportan ni al espíritu ni a la vida. Pero otra cosa ocurre cuando la porfía exige destreza, habilidad, conocimientos, valor y fuerza.

Quarrels and acts of violence go hand in hand with the ceremonious abdication of all pride, of which they are the reverse. Noble families disputed fiercely for that same precedence in church by which they courteously pretended to set little store.

The view we take in the following pages is that culture arises in the form of play, that it is played from the very beginning. Even those activities which aim at the immediate satisfaction of vital needs--hunting, for instance--tend, in archaic society, to take on the play form. Social life is endued with supra-biological forms, in the shape of play, which enhance its value. It is through this playing that society expresses its interpretation of life and the world.