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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Academe, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.

Academy, n. (from academe) A modern school where football is taught.

Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world: it gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. The picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.

A brilliant boxing match, quicksilver in its motions, transpiring far more rapidly than the mind can absorb, can have the power that Emily Dickinson attributed to great poetry: you know it’s great when it takes the top of your head off.

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

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