“We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing” is a saying that has been printed on many images.
 
American psychologist and educator G. Stanley Hall (1846-1924) wrote in his book Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education (1904):
   
“Gross well says that children are young because they play, and not vice versa; and he might have added, men grow old because they stop playing, and not conversely, for play is, at bottom, growth, and at the top of the intellectual scale it is the eternal type of research from sheer love of truth.”
   
“Hall says that we grow old because we stop playing, and not that we stop playing because we are growing old” was printed in a 1905 book.
 
“Spencer says: ‘We stop playing, not because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing’” was printed in the Charlotte (NC) News on December 26, 1915. English philosopher, prominent classical liberal political theorist, and sociological theorist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) is often credited, but there is no evidence that he ever said it.
   
Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist George Bernard Shaw has been credited since about 2000, but there is no evidence that he ever said it, either.
           
   
Wikipedia: G. Stanley Hall
Granville Stanley Hall (February 1, 1846 – April 24, 1924) was a pioneering American psychologist and educator. His interests focused on childhood development and evolutionary theory. Hall was the first president of the American Psychological Association and the first president of Clark University. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Hall as the 72nd most cited psychologist of the 20th century, in a tie with Lewis Terman.
 
Wikiquote: Herbert Spencer.   
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, prominent classical liberal political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era. He developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. He is most famous for coining the phrase “survival of the fittest”.
(The quotation is not listed.—ed.)
       
Google Books. 
Adolescence:
Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education
Volume 1  
By G. Stanley Hall
New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company
1904
Pg. 235:
Gross well says that children are young because they play, and not vice versa; and he might have added, men grow old because they stop playing, and not conversely, for play is, at bottom, growth, and at the top of the intellectual scale it is the eternal type of research from sheer love of truth.
 
Google Books.   
Normal College of the American Gymnastic Union of Indiana University
By American Gymnastic Union. Normal College, Normal College of the American Gymnastic Union (Indiana University)
Indianapolis, IN: The Hollenbeck Press
1905
Pg. 58:
(Granville Stanley—ed.) Hall says that we grow old because we stop playing, and not that we stop playing because we are growing old.
     
Google Books. 
25 May 1911, Journal of Education, pg. 566:
People do not cease playing because they grow old, but they grow old because they «ease playing. — G. Stanley Hall.
 
Newspapers.com.
26 December 1915, Charlotte (NC) News, “Chicago’s Recreational Problem as Related to a City-Wide Organization” by J. R. Richards, pg. 4, col. 5:
Spencer says: “We stop playing, not because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
   
Newspapers.com.
6 May 1921, Clarksville (TN) Leaf-Chronicle, pg. 4, col. 5:
“We stop playing, not because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”—Herbert Spencer.
 
Google Books.   
The Church at Play:
A manual for directors of social and recreational life
By Norman Egbert Richardson
New York, NY: The Abingdon Press
Pg. 59:
We stop playing, not because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.— Herbert Spencer.
 
Google Books.
National Parent-Teacher
Volume 18
1923
Pg. 526:
“We do not stop playing because we grow old; but we grow old because we stop playing,” said Herbert Spencer.
     
Google Books.
American Physical Education Review
1923  
Pg. 103:
Herbert Spencer wisely said in his wisdom, “We stop playing, not because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
 
Google Books.
Title We Don’t Stop Playing Because We Grow Old We Grow Old Because We Stop Playing: A Soft Cover Blank Lined Journal to Jot Down Ideas, Memories, Goals, and Anything Else That Comes to Mind
Author Standard Booklets
Publisher Independently Published, 2019
ISBN 1080738037, 9781080738038
Length 122 pages
 
Twitter.
Rev Run
@RevRunWisdom
We dont stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing! ( G.B.Shaw)
6:32 PM · Nov 27, 2009·Twitter Web Client
     
Google Books
Sensory Arts and Design
Edited by Ian Heywood
New York, NY: Bloomsbury
2017
Pg 50:
As Stanley Hall put it, ‘We do not quit playing because we grow old, we grow old because we quit playing’ (1904: 235).
     
Twitter.
Shaun Roe
@itszerolove
Replying to @Braxifen @flyingtroll65 and 3 others
This quote has been attributed to many, including Benjamin Franklin and George Bernard Shaw, but the original source is actually G. Stanley Hall’s “Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education (1904)”
5:28 PM · Jan 10, 2018·Twitter Web Client
 
Shaun Roe
@itszerolove
Jan 10, 2018
Replying to @itszerolove @Braxifen and 4 others
”[...] children are young because they play, and not vice versa; and he might have added, men grow old because they stop playing, and not conversely, for play is [...] the eternal type of research from sheer love of truth.” p.235
 
Twitter.
Auto Quotes Bot
@AutoQuotesBot
Quotes of the day :
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
by Bernard Shaw
#Quotes
2:11 AM · Feb 16, 2020·AutoQuoteBot