Quotes about sport
page 2

Bode Miller photo
Bill Clinton photo
John Hirst photo
Michael Swanwick photo
Roland Barthes photo
Stuart Wheeler photo

“I would just like to challenge the idea that it is necessary to have a lot of women, or a particular number, on a board. Business is very, very competitive and you should take the performance of women in another competitive area, which is sport where [men] have no strength advantage. Chess, bridge, poker - women come absolutely nowhere. I think that just has to be borne in mind.”

Stuart Wheeler (1935) British businessman and politician

As quoted in The Independent, Thursday 15 August 2013 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ukip-faces-renewed-accusations-of-sexism-as-stuart-wheeler-claims-women-are-not-as-competitive-as-men-8763570.html
See Victoria Coren for a reply.

Denis Dutton photo
Keshia Chante photo

“The music game is more than just my love for singing, its a sport for me.”

Keshia Chante (1988) Canadian actor and musician

Inside Entertainment (2008)

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“Now if plurality and difference belong only to the appearance-form; if there is but one and the same Entity manifested in all living things: it follows that, when we obliterate the distinction between the ego and the non-ego, we are not the sport of an illusion. Rather are we so, when we maintain the reality of individuation, — a thing the Hindus call Maya, that is, a deceptive vision, a phantasma. The former theory we have found to be the actual source of the phaenomenon of Compassion; indeed Compassion is nothing but its translation into definite expression. This, therefore, is what I should regard as the metaphysical foundation of Ethics, and should describe it as the sense which identifies the ego with the non-ego, so that the individual directly recognises in another his own self, his true and very being. From this standpoint the profoundest teaching of theory pushed to its furthest limits may be shown in the end to harmonise perfectly with the rules of justice and loving-kindness, as exercised; and conversely, it will be clear that practical philosophers, that is, the upright, the beneficent, the magnanimous, do but declare through their acts the same truth as the man of speculation wins by laborious research … He who is morally noble, however deficient in mental penetration, reveals by his conduct the deepest insight, the truest wisdom; and puts to shame the most accomplished and learned genius, if the latter's acts betray that his heart is yet a stranger to this great principle, — the metaphysical unity of life.”

Part IV, Ch. 2, pp. 273 https://archive.org/stream/basisofmorality00schoiala#page/273/mode/2up-274
On the Basis of Morality (1840)

Bill Bryson photo
Robert Southey photo

“It was a summer evening,
Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun,
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

St. 1.
The Battle of Blenheim http://www.poetry-archive.com/s/the_battle_of_blenheim.html (1798)

Piet Hein photo

“The human spirit sublimates
the impulses it thwarts;
a healthy sex life mitigates
the lust for other sports.”

Piet Hein (1905–1996) Danish puzzle designer, mathematician, author, poet

Hint And Suggestion : Admonitory grook addressed to youth
Grooks

Cormac McCarthy photo
Pope Benedict XVI photo
Jacques Ellul photo
Albert Einstein photo
Bill Maher photo

“Is it really a sport if you have all the equipment and your opponent doesn't know a game is going on?”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

On hunting; at PETA's "Stand-Up for Animals" show http://www.peta.org/blog/bill-maher-top-comics-stand-up-for-animals/ (Los Angeles' Comedy Store, 15 June 2014)

Michael Moore photo

“Democracy is not a spectator sport, it's a participatory event. If we don't participate in it, it ceases to be a democracy. So Obama will rise or fall based not so much on what he does but on what we do to support him.”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

"Capitalism is evil," says new Michael Moore film, Mike, Collett-White, Reuters, 6 September 2009 http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE5850F320090906,
2009

Bode Miller photo
Kanō Jigorō photo

“Generally speaking, if we look at sports we find that their strong point is that because they are competitive they are interesting, and young people are likely to be attracted to them. No matter how valuable the method of physical education, if it is not put into practice, it will serve no purpose — therein lies the advantage of sports. But, in this regard there are matters to which we must also give a great deal of consideration. First, so-called sports were not created for the purpose of physical education; one competes for another purpose, namely, to win. Accordingly, the muscles are not necessarily developed in a balanced way, and in some cases the body is pushed too far or even injured. For that reason, while there is no doubt that sports are a good thing, serious consideration must be given to the selection of the sport and the training method. Sports must not be undertaken carelessly, over-zealously, or without restraint. However, it is safe to say that competitive sports are a form of physical education that should be promoted with this advice in mind. The reason I have worked to popularize sports for more than twenty years and that I have strived to bring the Olympic Games to Japan is entirely because I recognize these merits. However, in times like these, when many people are enthusiastic about sports, I would like to remind them of the adverse effects of sports as well. I also urge them to keep in mind the goals of physical education—to develop a sound body that is useful to you in your daily life — and be sure to consider whether or not the method of training is in keeping with the concept of”

Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) Japanese educator and judoka

http://www.judoinfo.com/seiryoku2.htm seiryoku zenyo
"Judo and Physical Training" in Mind Over Muscle : Writings from the Founder of Judo (2006) edited by Naoki Murata, p. 57

Mike Rosen photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Robin Williams photo
Louis Althusser photo
Neil deGrasse Tyson photo
Andrew Linzey photo
Charlie Brooker photo

“Sport belongs in a news bulletin about as much as a mummified cat's head belongs in a Caesar salad.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

Newswipe

Phyllis Schlafly photo

“When will American men learn how to stand up to the nagging by the intolerant, uncivil feminists whose sport is to humiliate men?”

Phyllis Schlafly (1924–2016) American activist

Feminists On The Warpath Get Their Man, Phyllis Schlafly Columns, 2007-03-30, Schlafly, Phyllis, 2005-02-16 http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2005/feb05/05-02-16.html,

Earl Warren photo

“I always turn to the sports section first. The sports section records people's accomplishments; the front page nothing but man's failures.”

Earl Warren (1891–1974) United States federal judge

As quoted in Sports Illustrated (22 July 1968)
Variants:
I always turn to the sports page first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures.
As quoted in Best Sports Stories : 1975 (1976) by Irving T. Marsh
I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures.
As quoted in The Norton Book of Sports (1992) by George Plimpton, p. 470
1960s

David Foster Wallace photo
George Herbert photo

“It is a poor sport that is not worth the candle.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Arshile Gorky photo
Warren Buffett photo
Babe Ruth photo

“There is one hit of mine which will not stay in the official records, but which I believe to be the longest clout ever made off a major league pitcher. At least some of the veteran sport writers told me they never saw such a wallop. The Yanks were playing an exhibition game with the Brooklyn Nationals at Jacksonville, Fla., in April, 1920. Al Mamaux was pitching for Brooklyn. In the first inning, the first ball he sent me was a nice, fast one, a little lower than my waist, straight across the heart of the plate. It was the kind I murder, and I swung to kill it. The last time we saw the ball it was swinging its way over the 10-foot outfield fence of Southside Park and going like a shot. The ball cleared the fence by at least 75 feet. Let's say the total distance traveled was 500 feet: the fence was 423 feet from the plate. If such a hit had been made at the Polo Grounds, I guess the ball would have come pretty close to the top of the screen in the centerfield bleachers.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

In "Wherein Babe Tells of Some Longish Swats" http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1920/08/15/page/18/article/wherein-babe-tells-of-some-longish-swats by Ruth (as told to Pegler), in The Chicago Tribune (August 15, 1920); reprinted as "The Longest Hit in Baseball" https://books.google.com/books?id=SAAlxi-0EZYC&pg=PA39&dq=%22There+is+one+hit+of+mine%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjngMzRjbnQAhXDYyYKHe-JCCMQ6AEIFDAA#v=onepage&q=%22There%20is%20one%20hit%20of%20mine%22&f=false2 in Playing the Game: My Early Years in Baseball, p. 39

Aldo Leopold photo
William Somervile photo

“My hoarse-sounding horn
Invites thee to the chase, the sport of kings.”

William Somervile (1675–1742) English poet

The Chace (1735)

Rāmabhadrācārya photo
John Adams photo
Samuel Madden photo
Jürgen Klopp photo
Sinclair Lewis photo
José Maria Eça de Queiroz photo

“The Englishman falls on the ideas and customs of other nations like a lump of granite in the water: and there he stays, a weighty encumbrance, with his Bible, his sports and his prejudices, his etiquette and selfishness – completely unaccommodating to those among whom he lives. That is why he remains, in the countries where he has lived for centuries, a foreigner.”

O inglês cai sobre as ideias e as maneiras dos outros como uma massa de granito na água: e ali fica pesando, com a sua Bíblia, os seus clubes, os seus sports, os seus prejuízos, a sua etiqueta, o seu egoísmo – fazendo na circulação da vida alheia um incomodativo tropeço. É por isso que nos países onde vive há séculos é ele ainda o estrangeiro.
"Os Ingleses no Egipto"; "The English in Egypt" p. 160.
Cartas de Inglaterra (1879–82)

Alfred de Zayas photo

“Some observers compare elections in some countries with sports events, where people are but spectators. Moreover, elections must not be mere interludes for pushing a lever and then retreating to passivity, for democracy demands committed participation in the daily workings of society.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

United Nations General Assembly - Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A-68-284_en.pdf.
2013

Jack Kevorkian photo

“The American people are sheep. They're comfortable, rich, working. It's like the Romans, they're happy with bread and their spectator sports. The Super Bowl means more to them than any right.”

Jack Kevorkian (1928–2011) American pathologist, euthanasia activist

Quoted in "Between the dying and the dead: Dr. Jack Kevorkian's life and the battle to Legalize Euthanasia"‎ - Page 247 - by Neal Nicol, Harry Wylie - 2006
2000s, 2006

Masha Gessen photo
Mary McCarthy photo

“As happens with sports and hobbies, his enjoyment was solemnized by expertise, the rites of comparing, collating, a half-deliberate parody of scholarship like the recitation of batting averages.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

"The Writing on the Wall"
The Writing on the Wall and Other Literary Essays (1970)

“Boybuilding is a gift, it is an honor, and it is a privilege, although I'm hanging up my belt, I still want to be an ambassador for the sport and health and fitness.”

Iris Kyle (1974) American bodybuilder

In "IRIS KYLE WINS AGAIN" at bodybuilding.com (Sep 24, 2014).
Sourced quotes, 2014

Warren Farrell photo
Eric Hoffer photo
Patrick Matthew photo
Sallust photo

“Is it not better to die in a glorious attempt, than, after having been the sport of other men's insolence, to resign a wretched and degraded existence with ignominy?”
Nonne emori per virtutem praestat quam vitam miseram atque inhonestam, ubi alienae superbiae ludibrio fueris, per dedecus amittere?

Sallust (-86–-34 BC) Roman historian, politician

Source: Bellum Catilinae (c. 44 BC), Chapter XX, section 9; quoting Catiline

Thomas Sowell photo
Robert Fisk photo

“Terrorism' is a word that has become a plague on our vocabulary, the excuse and reason and moral permit for state-sponsored violence - our violence - which is now used on the innocent of the Middle East ever more outrageously and promiscuously. Terrorism, terrorism, terrorism. It has become a full stop, a punctuation mark, a phrase, a speech, a sermon, the be-all and end-all of everything that we must hate in order to ignore injustice and occupation and murder on a mass scale. Terror, terror, terror, terror. It is a sonata, a symphony, an orchestra tuned to every television and radio station and news agency report, the soap-opera of the Devil, served up on prime-time or distilled in wearyingly dull and mendacious form by the right-wing 'commentators' of the America east coast or the Jerusalem Post or the intellectuals of Europe. Strike against Terror. Victory over Terror. War on Terror. Everlasting War on Terror. Rarely in history have soldiers and journalists and presidents and kings aligned themselves in such thoughtless, unquestioning ranks. In August 1914, the soldiers thought they would be home by Christmas. Today, we are fighting for ever. The war is eternal. The enemy is eternal, his face changing on our screens. Once he lived in Cairo and sported a moustache and nationalised the Suez Canal. Then he lived in Tripoli and wore a ridiculous military uniform and helped the IRA and bombed American bars in Berlin. Then he wore a Muslim Imam's gown and ate yoghurt in Tehran and planned Islamic revolution. Then he wore a white gown and lived in a cave in Afghanistan and then he wore another silly moustache and resided in a series of palaces around Baghdad. Terror, terror, terror. Finally, he wore a kuffiah headdress and outdated Soviet-style military fatigues, his name was Yassir Arafat, and he was the master of world terror and then a super-statesman and then again, a master of terror, linked by Israeli enemies to the terror-Meister of them all, the one who lived in the Afghan cave.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

The Great War for Civilization (2005)

Wilfred Thesiger photo
Benjamin Mkapa photo
Alfred Binet photo
Steve Lyons photo
William Cowper photo

“Detested sport,
That owes its pleasures to another's pain.”

Of fox-hunting.
Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 326

Apolo Anton Ohno photo

“Mentally speaking, it sucks, man. Who wants to prepare their whole life and have it all taken away by some guy who just made a bad pass? But that's the beauty of the sport as well. Anything can happen.”

Apolo Anton Ohno (1982) American short track speed skating competitor

On speedskating
Gordon, Devin (2006-01-23), "APOLO ANTON OHNO: SPEED SKATING". Newsweek. 147 (4):48

Garry Kasparov photo

“The public must come to see that chess is a violent sport. Chess is mental torture.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

As quoted in Martin Amis's review of "Kasparov-Short" by Raymond Keene, Independent on Sunday, November 1995.
1990s

Dave Attell photo
Ayrton Senna photo

“I started racing go-karts. And I love karts. It's the most breathtaking sport in the world. More than F1, indeed, I used to like it most.”

Ayrton Senna (1960–1994) Brazilian racing driver

TV Interview Roda Viva, TV Cultura 1986 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGcO6lXb2Zo

Joseph Strutt photo
Willa Cather photo
Stuart Hall photo

“O'Connell: Which sporting nation would you like to see have a renaissance?”

Stuart Hall (1929–2014) sociologist and cultural theorist

BBC Fighting Talk (2005)

Joseph Strutt photo
Viktor Lutze photo
Emmitt Smith photo

“Football is a team sport, and there is no one individual who is bigger than the next person.”

Emmitt Smith (1969) American football player and sports broadcaster

Fred Mitchell (January 26, 1994) "Self-Doubt Will Never Plague Dallas' Smith", Chicago Tribune, p. Sports: 2.

Don Soderquist photo
Barbara Walters photo

“The sports page records people's accomplishments, the front page usually records nothing, but man's failures.”

Barbara Walters (1929) American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality

Occasionally attributed to Walters; actually said by Earl Warren, as quoted in Sports Illustrated (July 22, 1968).
Misattributed

Krist Novoselic photo

“I do feel like, kinda like a misfit; usually I feel, inside, I'm a misfit. Like, I don't really watch sports, or a lot of…”

Krist Novoselic (1965) Croatian-American rock musician

1:46–1:55
"Nirvana's Krist Novoselic on Punk, Politics, & Why He Dumped the Dems" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4TPRH2uK9w

Mario Cuomo photo

“Entertainers and sports figures achieve fame and wealth but find the world empty and dull without the solace and stimulation of drugs.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Address at Iona College (1984)

Niall Ferguson photo
Willa Cather photo
Howard Cosell photo

“The Rooneys are the finest people, the people I most respect in American sports ownership. I've always felt that way. And there's no reason to change. They are people of integrity and character… I have a whole transcendental feeling for the Steelers and the Rooneys and Pittsburgh.”

Howard Cosell (1918–1995) American sportscaster

1982 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=qEocAAAAIBAJ&sjid=A2AEAAAAIBAJ&dq=howard%20cosell%20plays%20pittsburgh%20they%20play%20the%20whole%20city&pg=4344%2C3796544

Mike Tyson photo
David Smith (rower) photo
Peggy Noonan photo
Theodore Dalrymple photo

“Where tax is solidarity, the national sport is tax evasion.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

"Tax is solidarity" - Theodore Dalrymple diagnoses France's malaise: Their intellectuals' belief that tax is solidarity and justice is fairness - but the national sport is tax evasion http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001407.php (February 28, 2007).
The Social Affairs Unit (2006 - 2008)

Ashot Nadanian photo
Benoît Mandelbrot photo
Dave Barry photo

“In sports, the U. S. Open is not actually held because it's more efficient just to mail the check to Tiger Woods.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far) (2007)

Koenraad Elst photo

“A left-over from this period is the North-Indian custom of celebrating weddings at midnight: this was a safety measure against the Islamic sport of bride catching.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 6
1990s, Negationism in India, (1992)

Sania Mirza photo

“The icing on the cake is where I had to take second fiddle to Yaxeni Oriquen Garcia 2005 Ms Olympia that was a big stab in the back at the time we were instructed to reduce 20% in the muscularity round.. I normally compete at 160-162 that year being the embassador of the sport I must lead by example, which I did. I competed at 155lbs still same conditioning, shape etc…. Lord behold second fiddle to Yaxeni.. It looked as if Yaxeni had did the opposite of what the current ruling stated and she was being rewarded.. Come on we have two different body types! I have a small tapered waist line, fine detail flowing through out my body, nice harmony and she's displaying nothing but BIG. When someone refers to Yaxeni body they say she's a big girl.. She has great confidence about herself on stage, which is an EXCELLENT tool and having that can always gain you a few points, but to flat out win is RIDICULOUS and not possible… Anyhow, Yaxeni was more surprised then I when hearing her name announced victoriously. And believe it or not annoucing the winner that year was Lenda Murray, so she was probably soaking up every second of me losing as a mild way of payback. I was always told when going after the champ you have to completely knock the champ "OUT."”

Iris Kyle (1974) American bodybuilder

Anything close should not cause you a win.
2012-02-05
An Exclusive Interview With the Ms. Olympia Champion Iris Kyle
RX Muscle
Internet
http://www.rxmuscle.com/rx-girl-articles/female-bodybuilding/4986-an-exclusive-interview-with-the-ms-olympia-champion-iris-kyle.html
Sourced quotes, 2012

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“There is no sport in hate where all the rage
Is on one side.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Lines to a Reviewer http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/shelley/percy_bysshe/s54cp/section229.html (1821), l. 3

Harry V. Jaffa photo
Steve Allen photo

“Just as at first the South wind makes gentle sport as it softly stirs the leaves and topmost branches of the woodland, but soon the unlucky ships are feeling all its terrible strength.”
Velut ante comas ac summa cacumina silvae lenibus adludit flabris levis Auster, at illum protinus immanem miserae sensere carinae.

Source: Argonautica, Book VI, Lines 664–666

Jacob M. Appel photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
Mitt Romney photo

“So we started a new business called Bain Capital. The only problem was, while WE believed in ourselves, nobody else did. We were young and had never done this before and we almost didn't get off the ground. In those days, sometimes I wondered if I had made a really big mistake. I had thought about asking my church's pension fund to invest, but I didn't. I figured it was bad enough that I might lose my investors' money, but I didn't want to go to hell too. Shows what I know. Another of my partners got the Episcopal Church pension fund to invest. Today there are a lot of happy retired priests who should thank him. That business we started with 10 people has now grown into a great American success story. Some of the companies we helped start are names you know. An office supply company called Staples – where I'm pleased to see the Obama campaign has been shopping; The Sports Authority, which became a favorite of my sons. We started an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly praised. At a time when nobody thought we'd ever see a new steel mill built in America, we took a chance and built one in a corn field in Indiana. Today Steel Dynamics is one of the largest steel producers in the United States.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-08-31
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/30/160357612/transcript-mitt-romneys-acceptance-speech
Transcript: Mitt Romney's Acceptance Speech
NPR
[2012-08-30, gopconvention2012, Mitt Romney: Introduction (video), YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_cGyPwt5UI]
2012

Bogumil Goltz photo

“What humiliation, what disgrace for us all, that it should be necessary for one man to exhort other men not to be inhuman and irrational towards their fellow-creatures! Do they recognise, then, no mind, no soul in them — have they not feeling, pleasure in existence, do they not suffer pain? Do their voices of joy and sorrow indeed fail to speak to the human heart and conscience — so that they can murder the jubilant lark, in the first joy of his spring-time, who ought to warm their hearts with sympathy, from delight in bloodshed or for their ‘sport,’ or with a horrible insensibility and recklessness only to practise their aim in shooting! Is there no soul manifest in the eyes of the living or dying animal — no expression of suffering in the eye of a deer or stag hunted to death — nothing which accuses them of murder before the avenging Eternal Justice? …. Are the souls of all other animals but man mortal, or are they essential in their organisation? Does the world-idea (Welt-Idee) pertain to them also — the soul of nature — a particle of the Divine Spirit? I know not; but I feel, and every reasonable man feels like me, it is in miserable, intolerable contradiction with our human nature, with our conscience, with our reason, with all our talk of humanity, destiny, nobility; it is in frightful (himmelschreinder) contradiction with our poetry and philosophy, with our nature and with our (pretended) love of nature, with our religion, with our teachings about benevolent design — that we bring into existence merely to kill, to maintain our own life by the destruction of other life. …. It is a frightful wrong that other species are tortured, worried, flayed, and devoured by us, in spite of the fact that we are not obliged to this by necessity; while in sinning against the defenceless and helpless, just claimants as they are upon our reasonable conscience and upon our compassion, we succeed only in brutalising ourselves. This, besides, is quite certain, that man has no real pity and compassion for his own species, so long as he is pitiless towards other races of beings.”

Bogumil Goltz (1801–1870) German humorist and satirist

Das Menschendasein in seinen weltewigen Zügen und Zeichen (1850); as quoted in The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh-eating https://archive.org/stream/ethicsofdietcate00will/ethicsofdietcate00will#page/n3/mode/2up by Howard Williams (London: F. Pitman, 1883), pp. 287-286.

Dick Gregory photo
Marie-Louise von Franz photo