George Orwell, 1945-12-14. "The Sporting Spirit", Tribune.

Sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.

— George Orwell on Sports

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting." in the context of "George Orwell, 1945-12-14. "The Sporting Spirit", Tribune." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Sports" (J, O) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 28, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
George Orwell

About George Orwell

George Orwell (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was the pen name of British novelist, essayist, and journalist Eric Arthur Blair, whose work is characterised by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and strong support of democratic socialism.