Quotes & Sayings About Bear Baiting

It is true that the Puritans banned all recreation on Sundays and all games of chance, gambling, bear baiting, horse racing, and bowling in or around taverns at all times. They did so, not because they were opposed to fun, but because they judged these activities to be inherently harmful or immoral. — Leland Ryken

The Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. — Thomas Babington Macaulay

Like Elizabeth, all her subjects were fond of the savage pastime of bear and bull baiting. It cannot be denied that this people had a taste for blood, took delight in brutal encounters, and drew the sword and swung the cudgel with great promptitude; nor were they fastidious in the matter of public executions. Kiechel says that when the criminal was driven in the cart under the gallows, and left hanging by the neck as the cart moved from under him, his friends and acquaintances pulled at his legs in order that he might be strangled the sooner. — William Shakespeare

What can I do with these people? They come to the risk so dutifully. Are delighted by anecdotes that give them Poetry. Are grateful to be told of diagonals that give them Painting. Good people. But stubborn when warned the beast is not domestic. How can I persuade them that the dark, soulful Keats was five feet one? Liked fighting and bear-baiting? I can't explain the red hair. Nor say how you died so full of lust for Fanny Brawne. I will tell them of Semele. — Jack Gilbert

Bloody hell, what did he hit me with? An anvil?"
"His fist."
"You should put that fool in a bear-baiting pit. You'd make a fortune." Dougal struggled to rise.
Sophia helped him on one side, Mary slipping under his other arm.
The wind swirled a bit harder, sending dust into the air.
"Heavens!" Mary said, glancing over their heads at the sky. "That's the third thunderhead as has passed this way today."
Sophia turned. A huge bank of thunderclouds hung overhead, roiling as if alive.
"We should get inside," she said uneasily.
Dougal didn't even glance at the clouds as he held a hand over his bruised eye and cheek. "Bloody hell, I can barely see. — Karen Hawkins

Even bear-baiting was esteemed heathenish and unchristian: the sport of it, not the inhumanity, gave offence. — Alexander Hume

I may be more sparing with mention of my gang rape in the future. Although I enjoy baiting this bear, I don't enjoy his pain. Just his fire. — Karen Marie Moning