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

The gods play games with men as balls.

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.

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

Idolatry is the mother of all games.

No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called games.

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

Football causeth fighting, brawling, contention, quarrel picking, murder, homicide and great effusion of bloode, as daily experience teacheth.

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

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

A 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?

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.