Gambling

“The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.”

“I enjoy gambling, I find ample opportunity in gambling to engage my mind and study.”

“Gambling is risk-taking. It might be said the owner of a casino gambles, takes risks, but he has the odds in his favour, so that's intelligent gambling. If I wanted to gamble, I'd buy the casino.”

“Take a breath, take it deep No time to think, my turn to go.”

“Never put money down unless you're sure in advance you will win.”

“That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.”

“When you're betting and you win, naturally you have that satisfaction, and the profit.”

“Gambling, in the ultimate study, stems from the passive, the submissive, the irresponsible in human nature; the gambler is one of an inferior lickspittle breed who turns himself belly-upward to the capricious deeds of Luck. Examine now the man of strength and action: he is never led by destiny. He drives on a decided course, manipulates the variables, and instead of submitting to the ordained shape of his life, creates a pattern to his own design.”

“Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were thrones;Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones.”

“The gamester, if he die a martyr to his profession, is doubly ruined. He adds his soul to every other loss, and by the act of suicide, renounces earth to forfeit Heaven.”

“Our Quixote bard sets out a monster taming,Arm'd at all points to fight that hydra, gaming.”

“Shake off the shackles of this tyrant vice;And other debts than those of honour pay.”

“Look round, the wrecks of play behold;Show equal poverty of mind.”

“Oh, this pernicious vice of gaming!”

“I'll tell thee what it says; it calls me villain, a treacherous husband, a cruel father, a false brother; one lost to nature and her charities; or to say all in one short word, it calls me—gamester.”

“Ay, rail at gaming—'tis a rich topic, and affords noble declamation. Go, preach against it in the city—you'll find a congregation in every tavern.”

“How, sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice?”

“It is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief.”