The content of the ideal is a desire to return to the perfection of an imaginary past. — Johan Huizinga Desire Copy Share Image
Whatever our creed or belief, we all know that there is no way back, that we must fight our way through. — Johan Huizinga Belief Copy Share Image
It is the goal of the American university to be the brains of the republic. — Johan Huizinga Brain Copy Share Image
In order to begin an analysis, there must already be a synthesis present in the mind. — Johan Huizinga Analysis Copy Share Image
What the study of history and artistic creation have in common is a mode of forming images. — Johan Huizinga Art Copy Share Image
In Europe art has to a large degree taken the place of religion. In America it seems rather to be science. — Johan Huizinga America Copy Share Image
The title of hero is bestowed by the survivors upon the fallen, who themselves know nothing of heroism. — Johan Huizinga Copy Share Image
History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us. — Johan Huizinga History Copy Share Image
Most thoughtful Americans of today seem to have forgotten how strongly their own and immediate predecessors, Emerson, Hawthorne and Whitman, were still… — Johan Huizinga America Copy Share Image
There are no instances known to me of cultures having forsaken Truth or renounced the understanding in its widest sense. — Johan Huizinga Culture Copy Share Image
History, as the study of the past, makes the coherence of what happened comprehensible by reducing events to a dramatic pattern and… — Johan Huizinga Coherence Copy Share Image
Play is a uniquely adaptive act, not subordinate to some other adaptive act, but with a special function of its own in… — Johan Huizinga Copy Share Image
The modern city hardly knows a pure darkness or true silence anymore, nor does it know the effect of a single small… — Johan Huizinga Cities Copy Share Image
Revolution as an ideal concept always preserves the essential content of the original thought: sudden and lasting betterment. — Johan Huizinga Betterment Copy Share Image
History can predict nothing except that great changes in human relationships will never come about in the form in which they have… — Johan Huizinga History Copy Share Image
“Megértettem, hogy a tanulásnak soha sincs vége, s olyan folyamatról van szó, amelyet szinte minden nap újra kell kezdenünk.” — Johan Huizinga Copy Share Image
“Our point of departure must be the conception of an almost childlike play-sense expressing itself in various play-forms, some serious, some playful,… — Johan Huizinga Play Copy Share Image
We are living in a demented world. And we know it. It would not come as a surprise to anyone if tomorrow… — Johan Huizinga Breeze Copy Share Image
Science, unguided by a higher abstract principle, freely hands over its secrets to a vastly developed and commercially inspired technology, and the… — Johan Huizinga Abstract Copy Share Image
People accept a representation in which the elements of wish and fantasy are purposely included but which nevertheless proclaims to represent "the… — Johan Huizinga Copy Share Image
Physical nature lies at our feet shackled with a hundred chains. What of the control of human nature? Do not point to… — Johan Huizinga Chains Copy Share Image
When the world was half a thousand years younger all events had much sharper outlines than now. The distance between sadness and… — Johan Huizinga Bad fortune Copy Share Image
The slogan offers a counterweight to the general dispersion of thought by holding it fast to a single, utterly succinct and unforgettable… — Johan Huizinga Copy Share Image
“Azt, amikor a szellem széttöri a bilincseit, menekülést keres, és szabadságra vágyik. Ez tehát a boldogság, egyben azonban elszakadás a földi dolgoktól,… — Johan Huizinga Copy Share Image
If we are to preserve culture we must continue to create it. — Johan Huizinga Culture Copy Share Image
The second fundamental feature of culture is that all culture has an element of striving. — Johan Huizinga Culture Copy Share Image
Nelson's famous signal before the Battle of Trafalgar was not: "England expects that every man will be a hero." It said: "Englandexpects… — Johan Huizinga Battle Copy Share Image
These are strange times. Reason, which once combatted faith and seemed to have conquered it, now has to look to faith to… — Johan Huizinga Dissolution Copy Share Image
It is impossible to strive for the heroic life. The title of hero is bestowed by the survivors upon the fallen, who… — Johan Huizinga Bestowed Copy Share Image
The susceptibility of the average modern to pictorial suggestion enables advertising to exploit his lessened power of judgment. — Johan Huizinga Advertising Copy Share Image
The repudiation of the primacy of understanding means the repudiation of the norms of judgment as well, and hence the abandonment of… — Johan Huizinga Abandonment Copy Share Image
Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present, the more intense… — Johan Huizinga Age Copy Share Image
All seemingly profound thinking which passes for realism, because it conveniently does away with all troublesome principles, has agreat attraction for the… — Johan Huizinga Attraction Copy Share Image
History creates comprehensibility primarily by arranging facts meaningfully and only in a very limited sense by establishing strict causal connections. — Johan Huizinga Copy Share Image
“A népnyelv e kifinomult szellem számára mindent túl közvetlenné, túl személyessé, túl reálissá tett volna. Szüksége volt arra a homályos, távolságtartó, könnyű… — Johan Huizinga Copy Share Image
Quite apart from any conscious program, the great cultural historians have always been historical morphologists: seekers after theforms of life, thought, custom,… — Johan Huizinga Art Copy Share Image
A superstition which pretends to be scientific creates a much greater confusion of thought than one which contents itself with simple popular… — Johan Huizinga Confusion Copy Share Image
But one sound always rose above the clamor of busy life and, no matter how much of a tintinnabulation, was never confused… — Johan Huizinga Bells Copy Share Image
Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to… — Johan Huizinga Animal Copy Share Image
Whether the aim is in heaven or on earth, wisdom or wealth, the essential condition of its pursuit and attainment is always… — Johan Huizinga Copy Share Image
