Sports

"At the first bullfight I ever went to I expected to be horrified and perhaps sickened by what I had been told would happen to the horses. Everything I had read about the bull ring insisted on that point; most people who wrote of it condemned bullfighting outright as a stupid brutal business, but even those that spoke well of it as an exhibition of skill and as a spectacle deplored the use of the horses and were apologetic about the whole thing. The killing of the horses in the ring was considered indefensible. I suppose, from a modern moral point of view, that is, a Christian point of view, the whole bullfight is indefensible; there is certainty much cruelty, there is always danger, either sought or unlooked for, and there is always death, and I should not try to defend it now, only to tell honestly the things I have found true about it. To do this I must be altogether frank, or try to be, and if those who read this decide with disgust that it is written by some one who lacks their, the readers’, fineness of feeling I can only plead that this may be true. But whoever reads this can only truly make such a judgment when he, or she, has seen the things that are spoken of and knows truly what their reactions to them would be."

"The crowd are on their feet, stamping and cheering, but El Cid just stands and stares at the bull in grave silence, his face inscrutable. This was truly what Kenneth Tynan called in his 1955 book Bull Fever "the slow, sad fury of a perfect bullfight.""

"I ask El Espinal mayors not to allow more events involving the death of people or animals [after the bullfighting stadium collapse]."

"What you are interested in is the art whereby a man using no tricks reduces a raging bull to his dimensions, and this means that the relationship between the two must always be maintained and even highlighted. The only way this can be achieved is with art. And what is the essence of this art? That the man carry himself with grace and that he move the bull slowly and with a certain majesty. That is, he must allow the inherent quality of the bull to manifest itself."

"Bullfight critics row on row Crowd the vast arena full But only one man’s there who knows And he's the man who fights the bull."

"He was an admirer of the bullfight, and had once drawn my attention to the fact that only cricket and bullfighting had inspired any appreciable literature."

"Whether or not the artistic quality of the bullfight outweighs the moral question of the animals’ suffering is something that each person must decide for themselves – as they must decide whether the taste of a steak justifies the death of a cow. But if we ignore the possibility that one does outweigh the other, we fall foul of the charge of self-deceit and incoherence in our dealings with animals."

"The Roman public's thirst for blood and pleasure in witnessing pain seems to have been unquenchable and without limit. The caged animals were kept in dungeons below the main arena. The terrified animals in their cages were hoisted up from this pit. And not only animals, human beings too, criminals, slaves and prisoners of war. And here in this arena they were set one upon the other to provide the crowd with spectacles of the most appalling carnage. It still continues to this day in Spain."

"There is an image I will never lose, much as I wish I could. It is of a man standing with half his face held in his right hand. Cheek, jaw and eyeball, like so much meat, resting in his palm as he walked towards his team uncomprehending, and they, with looks of absolute horror, grabbed his arms and rushed him to the infirmary of the ring. And yet here, in the amongst the carnage inflicted on a human body by a half ton of enraged animal, is the key to Juan José Padilla. The clue is in the phrase “stood up.” Soccer players are stretchered off the field from a tap to the ankle. Boxers go down from a padded glove. This was more than half a ton of muscle, focused into a pointed tip that ploughed through his skull like a sword through snow. And the man got up and walked."

"Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor."

"We cannot fit a multi-gender world into a two-gender system of sports."

"The reality is that tens of thousands of transgender and non-binary students have been playing sports for years without any unfair advantages or problems. In fact, the Associated Press asked lawmakers who were seeking to pass these discriminatory bills to cite problem cases in their states and not a single lawmaker could identify a case. That’s why “more than 500 college athletes signed a letter to the NCAA board of governors asking the organization to refuse to schedule championships in states that have banned transgender participation in sports.” All female athletes — transgender and non-transgender — have different shapes and sizes, have different strengths and weaknesses. The research shows there’s no scientific reason to exclude transgender young people. Doing so can lead to immense harm in overall well-being by interrupting an activity crucial to identity and development."

"Girls deserve equal opportunity to compete and achieve in sports. The Biden administration’s reinterpretation of Title IX is a slap in the face to young women and girls, telling them their hard work, on-field achievements, and athletic futures do not matter. Title IX was designed to stop discrimination and ensure equal athletic opportunities for women. By allowing biological males to compete in girls’ sports the Biden administration will be reversing 50 years of progress for women. H.R. 734, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023 strengthens the law’s existing protections for women, ensures a level playing field for female athletes, and protects the law from the Biden administration’s radical regulatory scheme."

"Some may feel super woke to say that transgender women athletes belong in female sports, but let me tell you as a biologist, in terms of muscle mass, transgender women have similar advantages over females as male athletes do, even with testosterone suppression therapy, therefore, it is not enough to simply acknowledge transgender as a distinct gender, we must also make necessary alterations to our preexisting societal fields, such as setting up transgender category in sports, where performance is predicated on physiological attributes, so that in an attempt to vest upon the transgender population their long-overdue fundamental rights, we do not start treating other genders unfairly without even being aware of it. Remember, replacing one wrong with another is not rightness. Our purpose is to preserve the rights of everyone, not to change the shape of the violation of those rights."

"What we have is a speculative fear of something that hasn't materialized. They're acting like LeBron James is going to put on a wig and play basketball with fourth graders."

"One of the primary objectives of trans sports activists is to normalize their theory of gender fluidity as settled fact. They sometimes resort to ruthless tactics in order to chill discourse that pushes back against their dogmas. They have de-platformed speakers, such as outspoken feminist Meghan Murphy. They have mobbed opponents on social media and, often successfully, demanded that their accounts be blocked (it helps that platforms like Twitter and Facebook are sympathetic to gender ideology). They have organized campaigns to cripple or end the careers of pre-eminent sexologists, including Dr. Kenneth Zucker, former director of the Gender Identity Clinic at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. And they have ensure that trans activists constitute an influential presence on committees tasked with providing gender identity guidelines in education, jurisprudence, social services, and yes, sport. They label anyone in the media who opposes their claims as "transphobic." Observant readers will have noticed that, in the last few years, the mainstream media have lost heart for engagement on this front and have largely ceded the field to the gender theorists."

"I believe in fairness. I also believe in inclusiveness. I do not believe however that transgender women have the right to compete against me or any other gender-born women regardless of their age."

"Badminton is not just a sport; it's a way of life, a passion, and a journey to discover the best version of yourself on the court."

"My life is pretty interesting now … I definitely can do better with more training and a coach but I don’t want to compare myself to others. I just want to enjoy my life, and my badminton"

"I am friendly with all the players of badminton but on court our attitude change as we prefer not to lose because of these relations."

"To keep shooting at a folly after it is dead is unsportsmanlike."

"There is a difference between spontaneous and/or good-natured displays of enthusiasm and calculated displays of obnoxious self-indulgence. That train has already gone so far down the wrong track, there’s probably no turning back. So our suggestion here is a more modest one. Hey, knuckleheads, is it too much to ask that you confine your buffoonery to situations that don’t directly damage your team? Week after week, game after game, we see guys who think nothing of incurring penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct, costing their team’s valuable yardage, even late in close games.”"

"Players, goalkeepers and non-playing Club personnel are responsible for their conduct at all times and must endeavor to prevent disorderly conduct before, during or after the game, on or off the ice and any place in the rink. The Referees may assess penalties to any of the above team personnel for failure to do so."

"All nations, Turks and Parthians, The Tartars and the Scythians, The Arabs, Moors and Indians, With brav’ry draw their bows."

"[An arbalest] is not drawn with the right hand, ... but by placing the feet upon the weapon itself, and pulling with the whole force of the body; and it despatches arrows called bolts, of hard wood pointed with iron, which the strength of the bow can send through the strongest breastplates, and even through stone walls, where not of uncommon thickness."

"With Bow let us win kine, with Bow the battle, with Bow be victors in our hot encounters. The Bow brings grief and sorrow to the foeman: armed with the Bow may we subdue all regions."

"Energy may be likened to the bending of a crossbow; decision, to the releasing of a trigger."

"The waxen line of the bowstrings struck their leather bracers with a light whapping sound ... A man dropped from each end of the attackers' rough formation, with the flat punching smack of arrowheads striking flesh loud enough to hear."

"Yet must I yield to death and stubborn fate, Whene'er, at morn or noon or eve, the spear Or arrow from the bow may reach my life."

"The Tao of heaven is like the bending of a bow. The high is lowered, and the low is raised. If the string is too long, it is shortened; if there is not enough, it is made longer."

"If the hawk is flying to his nest, we two will shoot down the fledgeling with our gilded arrows."

"Black arrow! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and always I have recovered you."

"We prohibit under anathema that murderous art of crossbowmen and archers, which is hated by God, to be employed against Christians and Catholics from now on."

"[He] made ready for combat; and he took forth the arrow that was given to him of the Simurgh, and he let it fly towards his enemy."

"...Let fly The bow of speech thou to the barb hast drawn."

"And the earth was covered with steel, and arrows fell from the clouds like hail, and the ground was torn with hoofs, and blood flowed like water upon the plains..."

"This is how the bow wounds! To death, to havoc, to ruin!"

"They rode armed for war, curved swords at their side and the thick horn-and-sinew bows of mounted archers in cases at their knees."

"[W]hen he had shot his bolt and had smitten one in the throng, then would that man fall where he was and give up his life..."

"I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

"I don’t miss basketball. I live very well, thank God. I have my interests, interests in agriculture."

"The game of basketball is one of the greatest teachers of life there is. It teaches you first and foremost to believe in yourself. You must develop physical and mental toughness in order to succeed because there's going to be many disappointments and setbacks along the way. You learn quickly that basketball is a team game. You must be unselfish and accept the role that helps the team the most. Basketball teaches you the importance of setting high standards and never accepting anything other than your best effort."

"The 2017 average salary for a WNBA athlete is about $51,000, while the NBA salary is $6 million. The WNBA’s highest paid player is Candace Parker, with around $3 million in salary and endorsements. In the NBA, the highest paid player is Stephen Curry making at $34 million."

"What's there to be happy about? Job's not finished. Kobe Bryant, Job's not finished answered during Los Angeles Lakers post game interview after winning Orlando Magic 2-0 in the 2009 NBA finals (June 2009)"

"TV networks are just not going to pay as much to cover WNBA games as they’re going to pay to cover NBA games. So where is the WNBA going to get the revenue to pay those equal kind of salaries? So I think in something like basketball it’s very unlikely."

"For as concerning football playing, I protest unto you it may rather be called a freendly kinde of fight, then a play or recreation; A bloody and murthering practise, then a felowly sporte or pastime. For dooth not every one lye in waight for his adversarie, seeking to overthrowe him & to picke him on his nose, though it be uppon hard stones? In ditch or dale, in valley or hil, or what place soever it be, hee careth not, so he have him down. And he that can serve the most of this fashion, he is counted the only felow, and who but he? So that by this meanes, sometimes their necks are broken, sometimes their backs, sometime their legs, sometime their armes; sometime one part thurst out of joynt, sometime an other; sometime the noses gush out with blood, sometime their eies start out; and sometimes hurt in one place, sometimes in another. But whosoever escapeth away the best, goeth not scotfree, but is either sore wounded, craised, and bruseed, so as he dyeth of it, or els scapeth very hardly. And no mervaile, for they have the sleights to meet one betwixt two, to dashe him against the hart with their elbowes, to hit him under the short ribbes with their griped fists, and with their knees to catch him upon the hip, and to pick him on his nec, with a hundered such murdering devices: and hereof groweth envie, malice, rancour, cholor, hatred, displeasure, enmitie, and what not els: and sometimes fighting, brawling, contention, quarrel picking, murther, homicide, and great effusion of blood, as experience dayly teacheth."

"To one that promised to give him hardy cocks that would die fighting, "Prithee," said Cleomenes, "give me cocks that will kill fighting.""

"Cockfighting has always been my idea of a great sport— two armed entrées battling to see who'll be dinner."

"Trade hardly deems the busy day begun Till his keen eye along the sheet has run; The blooming daughter throws her needle by, And reads her schoolmate's marriage with a sigh; While the grave mother puts her glasses on, And gives a tear to some old crony gone. The preacher, too, his Sunday theme lays down To know what last new folly fills the town; Lively or sad, life's meanest, mightiest things, The fate of fighting cocks, or fighting kings."

"I didn't see it, but it sounds barbaric. It's become like cock-fighting: poor dumb brutes being set upon each other by conniving television producers."