The gods play games with men as balls.

We cannot say what the woman might be physically, if the girl were not allowed all the freedom of the boy in romping, climbing, swimming, playing whoop and ball.

If I played in New York, they’d name a candy bar after me.

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules, and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence; in other words it is war minus the shooting.

The whole secret of fencing consists but in two things, to give and not to receive.

Recreations should be as sauces to your meat, to sharpen your appetite unto the duties of your calling, and not to glut yourselves with them.

Sport is the bloom and glow of a perfect health.

Courage and grace is a formidable mixture. The only place to see it is in the bullring.

The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of a gun.

I never yet could make out why men are so fond of hunting; they often hurt themselves, often spoil good horses, and tear up the fields—and all for a hare or a fox or a stag that they could get more easily some other way.

I do love cricket—it’s so very English.

Gambling is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief.

Two things only the people anxiously desire, bread and the circus games.