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

Idolatry is the mother of all games.

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

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

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

The gods play games with men as balls.

Play, wherein persons of condition, especially ladies, waste so much of their time, is a plain instance to me that men cannot be perfectly idle; they must be doing something, for how else could they sit so many hours toiling at that which generally gives more vexation than delight to people whilst they are actually engaged in it?

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.

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.

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

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.

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