James P. Carse

“The issue here is not whether self-veiling can be avoided, or even should be avoided. Indeed, no finite play is possible without…

— James P. Carse

“No one can play a game alone. One cannot be human by oneself. There is no selfhood where there is no community.…

— James P. Carse

A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.

— James P. Carse

“Immortality is therefore the supreme example of the contradictoriness of finite play: It is a life one cannot live.”

— James P. Carse

“Evil is never intended as evil. Indeed, the contradiction inherent in all evil is that it originates in the desire to eliminate…

— James P. Carse

“To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated. Education discovers an increasing…

— James P. Carse

“It is a highly valued function of society to prevent changes in the rules of the many games it embraces... Deviancy, however,…

— James P. Carse

“...religion ceases to be religion when its poetic authority is recast as civic authority.”

— James P. Carse

“Although it may be evident enough in theory that whoever plays a finite game plays freely, it is often the case that…

— James P. Carse

“We are playful when we engage others at the level of choice, when there is no telling in advance where our relationship…

— James P. Carse

“Surprise in finite play is the triumph of the past over the future. The Master Player who already knows what moves are…

— James P. Carse

“Titles are public. They are for others to notice. I expect others to address me according to my titles, but I do…

— James P. Carse

“War presents itself as necessary for self-protection, when in fact it is necessary for self-identification.”

— James P. Carse

“It is with this thought that many believers would call up Kierkegaard's famous phrase, the 'leap of faith,' pictured perhaps as a…

— James P. Carse

“Fields of play simply do not impose themselves on us. Therefore, all the limitations of finite play are self-limitations.”

— James P. Carse

“What will undo any boundary is the awareness that it is our vision, and not what we are viewing, that is limited.”

— James P. Carse

Strength is paradoxical. I am not strong because I can force others to do what I wish as a result of my…

— James P. Carse

“infinite players offer their death as a way of continuing the play. For that reason they do not play for their own…

— James P. Carse

“Therefore, poets do not 'fit' into society, not because a place is denied them but because they do not take their 'places'…

— James P. Carse

“Of course, immortality of the soul-- the bare soul, cleansed of any personality traces-- is rarely what is desired in the yearning…

— James P. Carse

“In attempting to say who Jesus is, the best we can do is to utter words provoked by the collective attempts to…

— James P. Carse

“Because horizon is the end of vision, and because every move we make gives the field an aspect we couldn't have noticed…

— James P. Carse

To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.

— James P. Carse

“if we cannot tell a story about what happened to us, nothing has happened to us.”

— James P. Carse

“Infinite play is inherently paradoxical, just as finite play is inherently contradictory. Because it is the purpose of infinite players to continue…

— James P. Carse