Johan Huizinga > Quotes

“If a serious statement is defined as one that may be made in terms of waking life, poetry will never rise to the level of seriousness. It lies beyond seriousness, on that more primitive and original level where the child, the animal, the savage, and the seer belong, in the region of dream, enchantment, ecstasy, laughter. To understand poetry we must be capable of donning the child's soul like a magic cloak and of forsaking man's wisdom for the child's.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture

“All play means something.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture

“The eternal gulf between being and idea can only be bridged by the rainbow of imagination.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture

“Our point of departure must be the conception of an almost childlike play-sense expressing itself in various play-forms, some serious, some playful, but all rooted in ritual and productive of culture by allowing the innate human need of rhythm, harmony, change, alternation, contrast and climax, etc., to unfold in full richness.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture

“To fill in all the gaps in my knowledge beforehand was out of the question for me. I had to write now, or not at all. And I wanted to write.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture

“For us the chief point of interest is the place where the game is played. Generatly it is a simple circle, dyutamandalam, drawn on the ground. The circle as such, however, has a magic significance. It is drawn with great care, all sorts of precautions being taken against cheating. The players are not allowed to leave the ring until they have discharged their obligations. But, sometimes a special hall is provisionally erected for the game, and this hall is holy ground. The Mahabharata devotes a whole chapter to the erection of the dicing hall - sabha - where the Pandavas are to meet their prtners. Games, of chance, therefore, have their serious side. They are included in ritual.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture

“The word "school" has a curious history behind it. Meaning originally "leisure" it has now acquired precisely the opposite sense of systematic work and training, as civilization restricted the free disposal of the young man's time more and more and herded larger and larger classes of the young to a daily life of severe application from childhood onwards.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture

“You can deny, if you like, nearly all abstractions: justice, beauty, truth, goodness, mind, God. You can deny seriousness, but not play.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

“The outlaw, the revolutionary, the cabbalist or member of a secret society, indeed heretics of all kinds are of a highly associative if not sociable disposition, and a certain element of play is prominent in all their doings.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

“In play there is something “at play” which transcends the immediate needs of life and imparts meaning to the action. All play means something. If we call the active principle that makes up the essence of play, “instinct”, we explain nothing; if we call it “mind” or “will” we say too much. However we may regard it, the very fact that play has a meaning implies a non-materialistic quality in the nature of the thing itself.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

“Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate the gods, and defend himself against his enemies, and win in the contest”. Thus”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

“For us the chief point of interest is the place where the game is played. Generally it is a simple circle, dyutamandalam, drawn on the ground. The circle as such, however, has a magic significance. It is drawn with great care, all sorts of precautions being taken against cheating. The players are not allowed to leave the ring until they have discharged their obligations. But, sometimes a special hall is provisionally erected for the game, and this hall is holy ground. The Mahabharata devotes a whole chapter to the erection of the dicing hall - sabha - where the Pandavas are to meet their prtners. Games, of chance, therefore, have their serious side. They are included in ritual.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture

“Play is battle and battle is play.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

“Aki tökéletesen okos és komoly, az képtelen élni. Minél jobban eltávolodik tőlem, Balgaságtól valaki, annál kevésbé él. Ugyan miért, mi okból csókolgatjuk, ölelgetjük a kisgyermekeket, ha nem azért, mert olyan csodálatosan balgák még. S mi más teszi az ifjúságot oly vonzóvá?”
― Johan Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

“Akinek egy jelszava van, vagy akár csak egyetlen politikai kifejezése, mint például: fajelmélet, bolsevizmus vagy bármi legyen is az, botot tart kezében, mellyel a kutyára üthet. A mai politikai publicisztika nagyjából ilyen botokkal hadonászik, hogy a kutyákra üthessen és olvasóit lázálmos betegekké neveli, kik mindenhol kutyákat látnak.”
― Johan Huizinga, In the Shadow of Tomorrow

“real civilization cannot exist in the absence of a certain play-element, for civilization presupposes limitation and mastery of the self, the ability not to confuse its own tendencies with the ultimate and highest goal, but to understand that it is enclosed within certain bounds freely accepted.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

“For many years the conviction has grown upon me that civilization arises and unfolds in and as play.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

“Is it surprising that the people could see their fate and that of the world only as an endless succession of evils? Bad governance, exactions, the cupidity and violence of the great, wars and brigandage, scarcity, misery and pestilence—to this is contemporary history nearly reduced in the eyes of the people. The feeling of general insecurity which was caused by the chronic form wars were apt to take, by the constant menace of the dangerous classes, by the mistrust of justice, was further aggravated by the obsession of the coming end of the world, and by the fear of hell, of sorcerers and of devils. The background of all life in the world seems black. Satan covers a gloomy earth with his somber wings.”
― Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages

“Megértettem, hogy a tanulásnak soha sincs vége, s olyan folyamatról van szó, amelyet szinte minden nap újra kell kezdenünk.”
― Johan Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

“The whole functioning of the mediaeval University was profoundly agonistic and ludic. The everlasting disputations which took the place of our learned discussions in periodicals, etc., the solemn ceremonial which is still such a marked feature of University life, the grouping of scholars into nationes, the divisions and subdivisions, the schisms, the unbridgeable gulfs—all these are phenomena belonging to the sphere of competition and play-rules. Erasmus”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

“We, at the present day, can hardly understand the keenness with which a fur coat, a good fire on the hearth, a soft bed, a glass of wine, were formerly enjoyed.”
― Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages

“I had to write now, or not at all. And I wanted to write.”
― Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

“An abundance of pictorial fancy, after all, furnished the simple mind quite as much matter for deviating from pure doctrine as any personal interpretation of Holy Scripture.”
― Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages

“Ha tévedni emberi dolog, miért neveznénk az embert szerencsétlennek, amiért téved, ha egyszer így született, ilyennek teremtették, s ez általában a sorsa.”
― Johan Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

“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 éntől való megszabadulás, a szeretők boldogsága, akiket Platón mindenki közül a legboldogabbnak nevez.”
― Johan Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

“A tudat, hogy szavunk az egész világhoz azonnal eljuthat, olyan ösztönzés, mely öntudatlanul is hatással van a megnyilatkozás módjára, s olyan gazdagság is egyben, melyet csak a legnagyobb szellemóriások viselhetnek el büntetlenül.”
― Johan Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

“A szentimentális barátságok a tizenötödik század világi köreiben éppolyan nemes dolognak számítottak, mint a tizennyolcadik század végén. Egyformán öltözködő, szobát, ágyat és szívet egymással megosztó baráti párokat minden udvarnál lehetett találni. A bensőséges barátság létrehívása és ápolása nem korlátozódott az arisztokráciára.”
― Johan Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

“A reneszánsz szellemének egyik legfőbb jellegzetessége a valóság figyelemre méltó tényei utáni határtalan tudásvágy s e tények befogadásának korlátlan mértéke. Az emberek nem tudtak betelni a tanulságos történetekkel, a különlegességekkel, ritkaságokkal, anomáliákkal. Egyenlőre nyoma sem volt a későbbi korok szellemi émelygésének, amikor már nem tudtak megbirkózni a valósággal, mely semmiképp sem volt többé a szájuk ízének való; most még bőségesen áradt az élvezet.”
― Johan Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

“A bölcsesség úgy áramlik a balgasághoz, mint az ész az érzelmekhez. S a világban sokkal több az érzelem, mint az ész. Ami az életet mozgásban tartja, az élet forrása a balgaság. Mert mi egyéb a szerelem? Miért házasodik az ember, ha nem balgaságból, mely soha nem ismer akadályt? Minden élvezet, minden szórakozás csak a balgaság fűszere.”
― Johan Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

“Az ebben a korszakban kibontakozó levélműfaj s mai idők újságjának szerepét töltötte be, vagy még inkább az irodalmi folyóiratét, amely szinte közvetlenül a tudós-levelezésből alakult ki. A levélírás, akárcsak az ókorban, amelyet e tekintetben talán még jobban és hasznosabban utánoztak, mint bármilyen más területen, művészet volt. […] A levelek általában azzal a megfontolással íródtak, hogy később, szélesebb körben publikálásra kerülnek, vagy mindenesetre annak a tudatában, hogy a címzett másoknak is megmutatja őket.”
― Johan Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation