A Quote by Brian Sutton-Smith

Play is a subset of voluntary behaviour involving a selective mechanism which reverses the usual contingencies of power so as to permit the subject a controllable and dialectical simulation of the moderately unmastered arousals and regulations of everyday life, in a way that is alternatively vivifying and euphoric.

Brian Sutton-Smith

Quote Topics

Behaviour Day Life Euphoric Everyday Everyday Life Involving Life Mechanism Moderately Permit Play Power Regulations Selective Simulation Subject Usual Voluntary Way Which

Quote Author

Brian Sutton-Smith
American - Psychologist

In play, the child is always behaving beyond his age, above his usual everyday behaviour; in play he is, as it were, a head above himself. Play contains in a concentrated form, as in the focus of a magnifying glass, all developmental tendencies; it is as if the child tries to jump above his usual level.

Lev S. Vygotsky

The dialectical critique of positivist habits of mind ... is interested only in behaviour which is 'important' to the actor; that is, behaviour which is emotionally charged to the degree that it is either frequently recalled, reflected upon, or day-dreamed about. ... That science which is less discriminating in the behaviour it chooses to investigate gains clarity and distinctiveness at the cost of confining itself to the trivial.

John Carroll

The true test of one's commitment to liberty and private property rights doesn't come when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we agree. The true test comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree.

Walter E. Williams

Produce what you consume; draw from the native element the necessaries of life. Permit no vitiated taste to lead you into the indulgence of expensive luxuries, which can only be obtained by involving yourselves in debt.

Brigham Young

Any society has to delegate the responsibility to maintain a certain kind of order. Enforcing regulations, making sure people stop at stoplights. We can’t function as a society without rules and regulations, and the enforcement mechanism of those rules and regulations.

Joseph Stiglitz

I think sometimes certain behaviour of men is seen as normal or usual - but it's never normal or usual to the victim, ever. It's horrific.

Nicola Roberts

I am in total opposition to any institutional power. I favor a world of neighborhoods in which all social organization is voluntary and the ways of life are established in small, consenting groups. These groups could cooperate with other groups as they saw fit. But all cooperation would be on a voluntary basis. As the French anarchist Proudhon said. “Liberty [is] not the daughter but the Mother of Order.

Karl Hess

A moderately honest man with a moderately faithful wife, moderate drinkers both, in a moderately healthy house: that is the true middle class unit.

George Bernard Shaw

In that way the long-awaited visit, for which both had prepared questions and had even anticipated answers, was once more the usual everyday conversation.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

When two friends are in the mood to chat, we have to go about it in a gentler and more dialectical way. By 'more dialectical,' I mean not only that we give real responses, but that we base our responses solely on what the interlocutor admits that he himself knows.

Plato

You know, in a business, you have to operate on the basis of voluntary investment by individuals in a cause. With government, there is no voluntary effort to invest capital. It's just taken and invested. And the same accountability is not at play. The same natural forces in the economy are not at play.

Mike Lee

I think having a sense of humor is just as important a coping mechanism as it is a gift for everyday life.

Camille Grammer

I think the most important way to understand play is that it's this property that's in things. Like there's play in a mechanism. For example, there's some play in the steering column before it engages as you're turning the wheel.

Ian Bogost

Intellectual adherence is never owed to anything whatsoever, for it is never in any degree a voluntary thing. Attention alone is voluntary. It alone forms the subject of an obligation.