Finite and Infinite Games

Finite and Infinite Games is a book by religious scholar James P. Carse. Kevin Kelly has praised it for "alter my thinking about life, the universe, and everything."

Famous quotes containing the words finite and, finite, infinite and/or games:

    Put shortly, these are the two views, then. One, that man is intrinsically good, spoilt by circumstance; and the other that he is intrinsically limited, but disciplined by order and tradition to something fairly decent. To the one party man’s nature is like a well, to the other like a bucket. The view which regards him like a well, a reservoir full of possibilities, I call the romantic; the one which regards him as a very finite and fixed creature, I call the classical.
    Thomas Ernest Hulme (1883–1917)

    Put shortly, these are the two views, then. One, that man is intrinsically good, spoilt by circumstance; and the other that he is intrinsically limited, but disciplined by order and tradition to something fairly decent. To the one party man’s nature is like a well, to the other like a bucket. The view which regards him like a well, a reservoir full of possibilities, I call the romantic; the one which regards him as a very finite and fixed creature, I call the classical.
    Thomas Ernest Hulme (1883–1917)

    The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation.
    Elias Canetti (b. 1905)

    As long as lightly all their livelong sessions,
    Like a yardful of schoolboys out at recess
    Before their plays and games were organized,
    They yelling mix tag, hide-and-seek, hopscotch,
    And leapfrog in each other’s way all’s well.
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)