G.K. Chesterton on the importance of play

I would much rather be ruled by men who know how to play than by men who do not know how to play…It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke—that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls.

—G.K. Chesterton, “Oxford from Without”