The whole secret of fencing consists but in two things, to give and not to receive.
—Molière, 1670Quotes
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.
—Robert Smith Surtees, 1843Gambling is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief.
—George Washington, 1783Though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.
—Bion of Smyrna, c. 100 BCRecreations should be as sauces to your meat, to sharpen your appetite unto the duties of your calling, and not to glut yourselves with them.
—Thomas Gouge, 1672These useless men ought to be cut up and served at a banquet. I really believe that athletes have less intelligence than swine.
—Dio Chrysostom, c. 95The sadness of the end of a career of an older athlete, with the betrayal of his body, is mirrored in the rest of us. Consciously or not, we know: there, soon, go I.
—Ira Berkow, 1987If I played in New York, they’d name a candy bar after me.
—Reggie Jackson, 1976We 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.
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1848Idolatry is the mother of all games.
—Novatian, c. 255Serious 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.
—George Orwell, 1945A passion for horses, players, and gladiators seems to be the epidemic folly of the times. The child receives it in his mother’s womb; he brings it with him into the world, and in a mind so possessed, what room for science, or any generous purpose?
—Tacitus, c. 100Sport is the bloom and glow of a perfect health.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1838