43+ Early Childhood Play Quotes

Play is the language of childhood, the essential work that shapes young minds and builds the foundation for lifelong learning.

These early childhood play quotes from renowned psychologists, educators, and child development experts illuminate

why play isn’t frivolous entertainment but rather the critical tool through which children discover themselves, understand their world, and develop the skills they’ll carry throughout their lives.

Foundational Early Childhood Play Quotes on Learning and Development

❝ Play is the foundation of learning, creativity, self-expression, and constructive problem-solving. It’s how children wrestle with life to make it meaningful. ❞

➣ Fred Rogers

❝ Play is the primary way children were designed to learn. ❞

➣ Kathy Hersh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff

❝ The drive to play freely is a basic, biological drive. ❞

➣ Peter Gray

❝ In play a child always behaves beyond his average age, above his daily behavior. ❞

➣ Lev Vygotsky

❝ If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society. ❞

➣ Jean Piaget

❝ Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning. ❞

➣ Fred Rogers

❝ Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn. ❞

➣ O. Fred Donaldson

❝ A child loves his play, not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard. ❞

➣ Benjamin Spock

❝ It’s important that we don’t underestimate the play of children because it can produce a much more satisfyingly creative adult. ❞

➣ Dorothy and Jerome Singer

❝ Do not keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play. ❞

➣ Plato

❝ The child amidst his baubles is learning the action of light, motion, gravity, muscular force. ❞

➣ Ralph Waldo Emerson

❝ When the fun goes out of play, most often so does the learning. ❞

➣ Joanne E. Oppenheim

Inspirational Play Quotes Celebrating Imagination and Creativity in Early Childhood

❝ When children pretend, they’re using their imaginations to move beyond the bounds of reality. ❞

➣ Fred Rogers

❝ Children who play creatively find multiple uses for objects. ❞

➣ Susan Linn

❝ The world of pretend play is one in which children can be free to express themselves, their ideas, their emotions, and their fantastic visions. ❞

➣ Susan Linn

❝ The imagination is an essential tool of the mind, a fundamental way of thinking, an indispensable means of becoming and remaining human. ❞

➣ Ursula K. Le Guin

❝ Creative play is like a spring that bubbles up from deep within a child. ❞

➣ Joan Almon

❝ The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable. ❞

➣ Carl Jung

❝ You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. ❞

➣ Maya Angelou

❝ Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning. ❞

➣ Diane Ackerman

❝ Almost all creativity involves purposeful play. ❞

➣ Abraham Maslow

❝ Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father. ❞

➣ Roger von Oech

❝ Imagination is the only key to the future. Without it, none exists—with it all things are possible. ❞

➣ Ida Tarbell

❝ As astronauts and space travelers children puzzle over the future; as dinosaurs and princesses they unearth the past. ❞

➣ Gretchen Owocki

Profound Quotes About the Essential Value of Play in Early Years

❝ Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity. ❞

➣ Kay Redfield Jamison

❝ It is in playing, and only in playing, that the individual child is able to be creative and to use the whole personality. ❞

➣ D.W. Winnicott

❝ Risky play teaches hazard assessment, delayed gratification, resilience, and confidence. ❞

➣ Caroline Paul

❝ A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who does not play has lost forever the child who lived in him. ❞

➣ Pablo Neruda

❝ There is for many a poverty of play. ❞

➣ D.W. Winnicott

❝ Children have always learned and created places for themselves through play. ❞

➣ Donna R. Barnes

❝ The very existence of youth is due in part to the necessity for play. ❞

➣ Karl Groos

❝ Creativity and the world of the imagination we experience as a child can be a way for us to survive tough times. ❞

➣ Diane Paulus

❝ Childhood play is a fun way to test the social realities into which one is born. ❞

➣ Jaak Panksepp

❝ Play is training for the unexpected. ❞

➣ Marc Bekoff

❝ We all need empty hours in our lives or we will have no time to create or dream. ❞

➣ Robert Coles

❝ Through observing children at play, we recognize what their worries, concerns, and fantasies are. ❞

➣ Dorothy and Jerome Singer

Memorable Early Childhood Play Quotes on Social Bonds and Emotional Growth

❝ It’s the things we play with and the people who help us play that make a great difference in our lives. ❞

➣ Fred Rogers

❝ Playing a game together actually builds up bonds and trust and cooperation. ❞

➣ Jane McGonigal

❝ Play matters because people matter. It reminds us of our interdependence and gives us a chance to really see other people. ❞

➣ Jill Vialet

❝ Play is foundational for bonding relationships and fostering tolerance. It’s where we learn to trust. ❞

➣ Isabel Behncke

❝ Play can be a vehicle for children to create a more just world where everyone is an equal and valued participant. ❞

➣ Patricia G. Ramsey

❝ Play touches and stimulates vitality, awakening the whole person—mind and body, intelligence and creativity. ❞

➣ Viola Spolin

❝ It is a happy talent to know how to play. ❞

➣ Ralph Waldo Emerson

❝ The true object of all human life is play. ❞

➣ G. K. Chesterton

❝ To the art of working well a civilized race would add the art of playing well. ❞

➣ George Santayana

❝ People tend to forget that play is serious. ❞

➣ David Hockney

❝ Culture arises and unfolds in and as play. ❞

➣ Johan Huizinga

❝ The playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery. ❞

➣ Erik H. Erikson

Conclusion

These early childhood play quotes unite voices across centuries and disciplines in a single, clear message: play is the essential work of childhood that deserves our protection, respect, and unwavering support.

When we honor children’s need to play, we invest in their present joy and their future potential, creating adults

who carry forward the creativity, resilience, and human connection that playful childhoods nurture.

FAQ’s

What is a quote about play in early childhood?

Fred Rogers beautifully captured it: “Play is the foundation of learning, creativity, self-expression, and constructive problem-solving.”

What is a powerful quote about play?

Kay Redfield Jamison’s words resonate deeply: “Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.”

What is a famous quote about early childhood?

Jean Piaget wisely observed: “If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children.”

What is the value of play in childhood?

Play teaches essential life skills including problem-solving, creativity, resilience, social cooperation, and emotional regulation while building confidence and independence.

What is a beautiful quote about childhood memories?

Pablo Neruda expressed it poignantly: “A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who does not play has lost forever the child.”

What are 5 positive quotes for kids?

Maya Angelou: “You can’t use up creativity”; Fred Rogers: “Play gives children a chance to practice”; Diane Ackerman: “Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.”