Sid Waddell Quotes

You have eternity in which to explain and only one night to be a martyr in the amphitheater Get out, darling, and let me see the lions eat you.

Football was always a deal we made with ourselves. We adopted it for its brutality, which was embedded in a context that happened to be perfectly suited to television and to gambling, but which we could convince ourselves was only incidental to our enjoyment because it was only incidental to the game itself.

… they shed the blood of Christians like that of the pagans

Children are being beheaded, women are being raped, men are being crucified, and Christians are being forced to “convert or die”. This is the essence of radical Islam: the barbarians even kill Muslims, as well as Christians, Jews, and others who are not like them.

The Persian King Darius I ordered the crucifixion of 3,000 Babylonians in about 519 BC.

Everyone wants to see collisions, so I'm ready to give some.

Fans want to see a fight and be entertained.

Belts aren't important. It's the fights that are important. Important to the fans, important to the show.

I love Greek history. I love Roman history.

In the first century CE, Roman authorities punished St. Apollonia by crushing her teeth one by one with pliers. Colin often thought about this in relationship to the monotony of dumping: we have thirty-two teeth. After a while, having each tooth individually destroyed probably gets repetitive, even dull. But it never stops hurting.

After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to the spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the slaughter of men, to the gladiators.

And while Protestant reformers broke with Rome on a variety of counts, their treatment of their fellow human beings was no less disgraceful. Public executions were more popular than ever: heretics were still reduced to ash, scholars were tortured and killed for impertinent displays of reason, and fornicators were murdered without a qualm.

The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.

The Christians to the lions sold out every night.

Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases?...We see a game beyond the endgame...As Seneca warned Nero: No matter how many of us you kill, you will never kill your successor.

Saints are usually killed by their own people.

Quintilius Varus, Give me back my legions!

Not all games are innocent. Some come dangerously close to cruelty.

If you put together all the ingredients that naturally attract children - sex, violence, revenge, spectacle and vigorous noise - what you have is grand opera.

Human cruelty knows no limits and that one needs immense courage and a will of iron to help others understand that animals are made of flesh and blood like us, that they suffer the same pains as us, that they deserve the same respect as us and that their continuous slaughter should not be part of human entertainment.

He (Cato) never gave his opinion in the Senate upon any other point whatever, without adding these words, "And, in my opinion Carthage should be destroyed." ["Delenda est Carthago."]

I'm not against (bull fighting). Some nations like to see blood, and some like to see their victims suffer from speculation... They kill the bull very quick. Wall Street lets you live and suffer.

I looked at the stained-glass image of the lamb in the window above me, but that only reminded me that lambs are famous for being led to slaughter, or sometimes hanging out with lions in ill-advised relationships.

Ideas grow quickly when watered with the blood of martyrs.