There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.
Interpretation
Hemingway emphasizes that true sports require immense courage and skill, distinguishing them from simpler games.
In this quote, Ernest Hemingway categorizes bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering as the only authentic sports, implying they embody the ultimate test of human skill, bravery, and endurance. He suggests that these activities are the pinnacle of sporting challenges, while other pastimes are mere amusements without the same level of risk or intensity. Hemingway's perspective elevates these three pursuits, celebrating the passion, danger, and artistry involved in their execution.
In practice
During a motivational speech about taking risks, one might quote Hemingway's perspective on sports.
He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on.
How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.
When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.
There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.
There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
I think you reveal yourself by what you choose to photograph, but I prefer photographs that tell more about the subject. There's nothing much interesting to tell about me; what's interesting is the person I'm photographing, and that's what I try to show. [...] I think each photographer has a point of view and a way of looking at the world... that has to do with your subject matter and how you choose to present it. What's interesting is letting people tell you about themselves in the picture.
The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.
Writing isnβt a career choice. Itβs self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.
I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, 'No. No, I'm finished. Bye.' And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won't do that.
A living is made, Mr Kemper, by selling something that everybody needs at least once a year.Yes, sir! And a million ismade by producing something that everybody needs every day.You artists produce something that nobody needs at any time.
I started off with classical music, and I got into jazz when I was about 14 years old. And I've been playing jazz ever since.
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