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Johan Huizinga Biography

Johan Huizinga (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈjoːɦɑn ˈɦœy̯zɪŋɣaː]; 7 December 1872 – 1 February 1945) was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history.

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Johan Huizinga Quotes

The awareness of the all-surpassing importance of social groups is now general property in America.

America, Awareness, General, Groups, Social

Physical nature lies at our feet shackled with a hundred chains. What of the control of human nature? Do not point to the triumphsof psychiatry, social services or the war against crime. Domination of human nature can only mean the domination of every man by himself.

Lying, Man, Mean, Social, War

We have to transpose ourselves into this impressionability of mind, into this sensitivity to tears and spiritual repentance, intothis susceptibility, before we can judge how colorful and intensive life was then.

History, Intensive, Judging, Life, Mind, Spiritual

William James once said: "Progress is a terrible thing. " It is more than that: it is also a highly ambiguous notion. For who knowsbut that a little further on the way a bridge may not have collapsed or a crevice split the earth?

Bridge, Bridges, Earth, Highly, Knowsbut, Progress

It is the goal of the American university to be the brains of the republic.

American, Brain, Goal, Republic, University

When the world was half a thousand years younger all events had much sharper outlines than now. The distance between sadness and joy, between good and bad fortune, seemed to be much greater than for us; every experience had that degree of directness and absoluteness which joy and sadness still have in the mind of a child

Children, Distance, Half, Joy, Mind, Sadness

A new culture can only grow up in the soil of a purged humanity.

Culture, Grow, Growing Up, Humanity

These are strange times. Reason, which once combatted faith and seemed to have conquered it, now has to look to faith to save it from dissolution.

Looks, Reason, Seemed, Strange Times, Times

A crude mind could easily think: something is valid, therefore it is true.

Mind, Think, Thinking, True, Truth, Valid

The spirit of playful competition is, as a social impulse, older than culture itself and pervades all life like a veritable ferment. Ritual grew up in sacred play; poetry was born in play and nourished on play; music and dancing were pure play. . . . We have to conclude, therefore, that civilization is, in its earliest phases, played. It does not come from play. . . it arises in and as play, and never leaves it.

Civilization, Dancing, Older, Pervades, Play

You can deny, if you like, nearly all abstractions: justice, beauty, truth, goodness, mind, God. You can deny seriousness, but not play.

Justice, Mind, Play, Seriousness, Truth

Culture must have its ultimate aim in the metaphysical or it will cease to be culture.

Aim, Cease, Culture, Metaphysical

If the Americans, in addition to the eagle and the Stars and Stripes and the more unofficial symbols of bison, moose and Indian, should ever need another emblem, one which is friendly and pleasant, then I think they should choose the grapefruit. Or rather the half grapefruit, for this fruit only comes in halves, I believe. Practically speaking, it is always yellow, always just as fresh and well served. And it always comes at the same, still hopeful hour of the morning.

Believe, Fruit, Hour, Morning, Stars, Symbols

From whichever angle one looks at it, the application of racial theories remains a striking proof of the lowered demands of public opinion upon the purity of critical judgment.

Demand, Looks, Public, Public Opinion, Remains, Striking

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.

Belong, Children, Dream, Enchantment, Laughter

If, then, this civilization is to be saved, if it is not to be submerged by centuries of barbarism, but to secure the treasures ofits inheritance on new and more stable foundations, there is indeed need for those now living fully to realize how far the decay has already progressed.

Civilization, Foundations, History, Progressed, War

History can predict nothing except that great changes in human relationships will never come about in the form in which they have been anticipated.

Come, Form, Great Change, Human, Humans, Predict

Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing.

Animal, Animals, Man, Men, Play

The title of hero is bestowed by the survivors upon the fallen, who themselves know nothing of heroism.

Bestowed, Hero, Know, Survivor, Survivors, Titles

Culture means control over nature.

Control, Culture, Mean, Nature

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Johan Huizinga Biography

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