Fox hunting

"Of all things in this world, Fox-hunting is the most difficult thing to explain to those who know nothing about it."

"It is difficult for many people today to understand how you can be bound by a code of honour and sympathy to an animal that you are intending to kill; but this is exactly what was once understood by chivalry and it is perhaps a function of sport to cultivate the spirit of chivalry in those who engage in it."

"One knows so well the popular idea of health. The English country gentleman galloping after a fox—the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable."

"It was quite by chance that I should be trotting down a Cotswold lane on a friends old pony when the uniformed centaurs came galloping past."

"A machine with only two products: Dog-shit and dead foxes."

"But if the rougher sex by this fierce sport Is hurried wild, let not such horrid joy E’er stain the bosom of the British fair. Far be the spirit of the chase from them! Uncomely courage, unbeseeming skill, To spring the fence, the rein the prancing steed, The cap, the whip, the masculine attire. In which they roughen to the sense and all The winning softness of their sex is lost."

"The Field is a most agreeable Coffee-house, and there is more real society to be met with there than in any other situation of life. It links all classes together, from the Peer to the Peasant. It is the English man’s peculiar privilege. It is not to he found in any other part of the globe, but in Englands true land of liberty—and may it flourish to the end of time!!"