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

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?

The 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.

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

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

The gods play games with men as balls.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?