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

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

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

Serious 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?