Lapham’s Quarterly

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

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?

Though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.

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

The gods play games with men as balls.

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

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.

We 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.

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.

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