# Quote — Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

> The judge smiled. Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But the trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.

- Author: [Cormac McCarthy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy.md)
- Book: [Blood Meridian](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy/blood-meridian.md)
- Page: 260
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Blood_Meridian#Quotations) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy/blood-meridian/the-judge-smiled-men

## More from this book

> Spanish: "People say the coyote is a witch. Most of the time, the witch is a coyote."

p. 75 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy/blood-meridian/spanish-people-say.md)

> Where is yesterday? Where is Glanton and Brown and where is the priest? He leaned closer. Where is Shelby, whom you left to the mercies of Elias in the desert, and where is Tate whom you abandoned in the mountains? Where the ladies, ah the fair and tender ladies with whom you danced at the governor's ball when you were a hero anointed with the blood of the enemies of the republic you'd elected to defend? And where is the fiddler and where the dance?

p. 344 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy/blood-meridian/where-is-yesterday.md)

> This is a terrible place to die in.
>
> Where’s a good one?

p. 217 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy/blood-meridian/this-is-a-terrible.md)