"The trouble with research is that it tells you what people were thinking about yesterday, not tomorrow. It's like driving a car using a rearview mirror." Bernard Loomis, toy manufacturing executive.
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." George Bernard Shaw
"As the creative adult needs to toy with ideas, the child, to form his ideas, needs toys and plenty of leisure and scope to play with them as he likes, and not just the way adults think proper. This is why he must be given this freedom for his play to be successful and truly serve him well." Bruno Bettelheim (20th century), Austrian-American child psychologist. A Good Enough Parent, ch. 14 (1987).
"Girls . . . were allowed to play in the house . . . and boys were sent outdoors. . . . Boys ran around in the yard with toy guns going kksshh-kksshh, fighting wars for made-up reasons and arguing about who was dead, while girls stayed inside and played with dolls, creating complex family groups and learning how to solve problems through negotiation and roleplaying. Which gender is better equipped, on the whole, to live an adult life, would you guess?" Garrison Keillor (20th century), U.S. humorist and author. The Book of Guys (1993).
"When it comes to toys, however, fathers tighten the gender- based screws: There will be no unisexuality, especially with their sons. While mothers generally allow both boys and girls to choose from an array of playthings, it is father who most often decree what is considered appropriate for sons and daughters." Victoria Secunda (20th century), U.S. psychologist and author. Women and Their Fathers, ch. 1 (1992).
"PLAYING SHOULD BE FUN! In our great eagerness to teach our children we studiously look for educational toys, games with built-in lessons, books with a message. Often these tools are less interesting and stimulating than the child's natural curiosity and playfulness. Play is by its very nature educational. And it should be pleasurable. When the fun goes out of play, most often so does the learning." Joanne E. Oppenheim (20th century), U.S. educator and author. Kids and Play, ch. 1 (1984).
"We fill the hands and nurseries of our children with all manner of dolls, drums, and horses, withdrawing their eyes from the plain face and sufficing objects of nature, the sun, and moon, the animals, the water, and stones, which should be their toys." Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "The Poet," Essays, Second Series (1844).
