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

Though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.

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

Hunting is all that’s worth living for—all time is lost what is not spent in hunting—it is like the air we breathe—if we have it not we die—it’s the sport of kings, the image of war without its guilt.

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

A win always seems shallow: it is the loss that is so profound and suggests nasty infinities.

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 true mission of American sports is to prepare young men for war.

These useless men ought to be cut up and served at a banquet. I really believe that athletes have less intelligence than swine.

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

One great reason why many children abandon themselves wholly to silly sports and trifle away all their time insipidly is because they have found their curiosity baulked and their inquiries neglected.

If I lose at play, I blaspheme, and if my fellow loses, he blasphemes. So that God is always sure to be the loser.

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.