Johan Huizinga — Dutch Historian born on December 07, 1872, died on February 01, 1945

Johan Huizinga, was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history... (wikipedia)

It is impossible to strive for the heroic life. The title of hero is bestowed by the survivors upon the fallen, who themselves know nothing of heroism.
Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present, the more intense that yearning.
Play is a uniquely adaptive act, not subordinate to some other adaptive act, but with a special function of its own in human experience.
The second fundamental feature of culture is that all culture has an element of striving.
Culture must have its ultimate aim in the metaphysical or it will cease to be culture.