Play Quotes - Page 33

• It is easier for a woman to be a good wife than a good mother. A widow has two duties with contrary obligations: she is a mother and she must exercise paternal authority. Few woman are strong enough to understand and to play this role.

  Honore de Balzac

  Mother, Strong, Exercise

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• Our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are frail,
  Our souls immortal, though our limbs decay;
  Though darken'd in this poor life by a veil
  Of suffering, dying matter, we shall play
  In truth's eternal sunbeams; on the way
  To heaven's high capitol our cars shall roll;
  The temple of the Power whom all obey,
  That is the mark we tend to, for the soul
  Can take no lower flight, and seek no meaner goal.

  James Gates Percival

  Goal, Car, Heaven

  James Gates Percival (1821). “Poems by James G. Percival ...”, p.322

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• God does not play dice [with the universe].
  [Ger., Gott wurfelt nicht.]

  Albert Einstein

  God, Gambling, Creation Of The Universe

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• There are like to be short graces where the devil plays host.

  Charles Lamb

  Grace, Devil, Host

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• The most important part of education is right training in the nursery. The soul of the child in his play should be trained to that sort of excellence in which, when he grows to manhood, he will have to be perfected.

  Plato

  Education, Children, Soul

  Plato (1883). “Plato's Best Thoughts”

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• The United States does not have a choice as to whether or not is will or will not play a great part in the world. Fate has made that choice for us. The only question is whether we will play the part well or badly.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Fate, Choices, United States

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• Explain to me how he [her son] can ride a bicycle, run, play ball, set up a camp, swing, fight a war, swim and race for eight hours ... and has to be driven to the garbage can.

  Erma Bombeck

  Running, War, Fighting

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• Nothing is so unpredictable as a throw of the dice, and yet every man who plays often will at some time or other make a Venus-cast: now and then he indeed will make it twice and even thrice in succession. Are we going to be so feebleminded then as to aver that such a thing happened by the personal intervention of Venus rather than by pure luck?

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Men, Gambling, Luck

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• My musical genius reached its apex thirty years ago when I played the triangle in Haydn's children's symphony, so I could not play unless you needed someone to make one sustained note!

  May Sarton

  Children, Musical Genius, Years

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• anyone who writes plays is unbelievably persistent, because there isn't a need in the world for plays. Somehow you internally have to feel a need to write a play.

  Wendy Wasserstein

  Writing, Needs, World

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• Even kings but play; and when their part is done, some other, worse or better, mounts the throne.

  John Dryden

  Kings, Acting, Thrones

  John Dryden (1870). “The Poetical Works of John Dryden”, p.558

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• There can be no freedom in the large sense of the word, no harmonious development, so long as mercenary and commercial considerations play an important part in the determination of personal conduct.

  Emma Goldman

  Determination, Business, Long

  Emma Goldman, Candace Falk (2008). “Emma Goldman”, p.341, University of Illinois Press

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• Play not for gain, but sport. Who plays for more
  Than he can lose with pleasure, stakes his heart;
  Perhaps his wife's too, and whom she hath bore.

  George Herbert

  Sports, Heart, Gambling

  Jeremy Taylor, John Wheeldon, George Herbert (1768). “Sacred Prolusions: Or, Select Pieces from Bishop Taylor and Mr. Herbert. By the Rev. John Wheeldon, ... With a Preface and a Discourse on Rev.xviii. 21. By the Editor”, p.102

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• The House Beautiful is the play lousy.

  Dorothy Parker

  Beautiful, House

  Dorothy Parker (2004). “Dorothy Parker in Her Own Words”, Taylor Trade Publishing

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• Anticipated rents, and bills unpaid,
  Force many a shining youth into the shade,
  Not to redeem his time, but his estate,
  And play the fool, but at the cheaper rate.

  William Cowper

  Shining, Debt, Shade

  William Cowper (1830). “Poems ... With a sketch of his life and a vindication of his religious principles and character. Third edition, corrected and enlarged. [With a portrait.]”, p.145

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• Kings play at war unfairly with republics; they can only lose some earth, and some creatures they value as little, while republics lose in every soldier a part of themselves.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Kings, War, Soldier

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “The Works of Walter Savage Landor”, p.25

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• If sex is a war, I am a conscientious objector: I will not play.

  Marge Piercy

  Sex, War, Conscientious Objectors

  Marge Piercy (2013). “Braided Lives”, p.66, PM Press

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• Did you know, throughout the cosmos they found intelligent life forms that play to play? We are the only ones that play to win. Explains why we have more than our share of losers.

  Lily Tomlin

  Intelligent, Winning, Cosmos

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• We see but the outside of a rich man's happiness; few consider him to be like the silkworm, that, when she seems to play, is at the very same time consuming herself.

  Izaak Walton

  Men, Riches, Consuming

  Izaak Walton (1853). “The Complete Angler ... Edited by James Rennie. With illustrations and a portrait”, p.234

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• The perfection of conversation is not to play a regular sonata, but, like the AEolian harp, to await the inspiration of the passing breeze.

  Edmund Burke

  Inspiration, Perfection, Harps

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• I don't think it's possible to write a good play or paint a good picture and be a good Republican.

  Marya Mannes

  Party, Writing, Thinking

  Marya Mannes (1958). “More in Anger”

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• While the poet entertains he continues to search for eternal truths, for the essence of being. In his own fashion he tries to solve the riddle of time and change, to find an answer to suffering, to reveal love in the very abyss of cruelty and injustice. Strange as these words may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in utter gloom, the poet--whom Plato banned from his Republic--may rise up to save us all.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Fashion, Plato, War

  Isaac Bashevis Singer, Joseph C. Landis (1986). “Aspects of I.B. Singer”

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• fair play is less characteristic of groups than of individuals.

  Agnes Repplier

  Groups, Fairness, Individual

  Agnes Repplier (1924). “Under dispute”

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• The time at length arrives, when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity and the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Grief, May, Lips

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1869). “Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus”, p.35

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• Man is a passion which brings a will into play, which works an intelligence.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Passion, Men

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