
“3273. Look not a given Horse in the Mouth.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Gargantua (1534), Chapter 11.
“3273. Look not a given Horse in the Mouth.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“No man ought to looke a given horse in the mouth.”
Part I, chapter 5.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“He ne'er consider'd it, as loth
To look a gift-horse in the mouth.”
Canto I, line 490
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)
“Never look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Noli equi dentes inspicere donati.
On the Epistle to the Ephesians
Commentaries, New Testament
“A team of horses cannot overtake a word that has left the mouth.”
Source: Translations, Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942), Ch. 27 (p. 266)
“Smith didn't pay attention to that, he was looking the horse in the eye.”
Seabiscuit (2003)
Context: He was a small horse, barely fifteen hands. He was hurting, too. There was a limp in his walk, a wheezing when he breathed. Smith didn't pay attention to that, he was looking the horse in the eye.
“He seems to think that posterity is a pack-horse, always ready to be loaded.”
Speech in the House of Commons (3 June 1862)
1860s
“Surprisingly, it was in my mouth," he said, "I always forget to check there.”
Lightsong the Bold
Warbreaker (2009)