Quotes about horses (852 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Gay marriage is legal in 6 states, but having sex with a horse is legal in 23 states. Good job, America.”

Jim Carrey (1962) Canadian-American actor, comedian, and producer

Marriage , Sex

“Melody is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpointists to hack post-horses; therefore be advised, let well alone and remember the old Italian proverb: Chi sa più, meno sa—Who knows most, knows least.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

As spoken to Michael Kelly, from Reminiscences of Michael Kelly, of the King's Theatre, and Theatre Royal Drury Lane, including a period of nearly half a century; with Original Anecdotes of many distinguished Personnages, Political, Literary, and Musical (London, Henry Colburn, 1826; digitized 2006), 2nd ed., vol. I (p. 225) http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC00439352&id=ph3XEMzGt5YC&pg=RA2-PA225&lpg=RA2-PA225&dq=%22Melody+is+the+essence+of+music%22&hl=en

Music

“Hindustan is a country which has few pleasures to recommend it…. Indians have no idea of the charms of friendly society, of frankly mixing together, or of familiar intercourse…. They have no horses, no good grapes, or musk melons, no good fruits, no ice or cold water, no good food or bread in their bazaars, no bath or colleges, no candles, no torches, not a candle stick”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

First Mughal emperor Babur wrote in his autobiography Tuzk-e-Babri

Pleasure , Food , Idea , Water

“If I paint a wild horse, you might not see the horse… but surely you will see the wildness!”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Painting

“All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.”

Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) American jazz trumpeter, composer and singer

Variant: All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.

Music , Singing

“And no matter how serious an environmental problem the automobile poses in today's big city, the horse was dirtier, smelled worse, killed and maimed more people, and congested the streets just as much.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 1, p. 317

People , Problem

“The moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Life , Age , Travel , Home

“Um… is that thing?" Frank said.
The horse whinnied angrily.
"I don't think so," Percy guessed. "He just said”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Funny , Thinking

“Many creatures go through a natural change and by decay pass into different forms, as bees [are formed] by the decaying flesh of calves, as beetles from horses, locusts from mules, scorpions from crabs.”
Siquidem et per naturam pleraque mutationem recipiunt, et corrupta in diversas species transformantur; sicut de vitulorum carnibus putridis apes, sicut de equis scarabei, de mulis locustae, de cancris scorpiones.

Isidore of Seville book Etymologiae

Bk. 11, ch. 4, sect. 3; p. 221.
Etymologiae

Nature , Bee , Change

“When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

Video interview, quoted in Analyzing Leaders, Presidents and Terrorists by Diane E. Holloway page 325 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Jc7CY1yV1g8C&pg=PA325, with NPR transcript https://www.npr.org/news/specials/response/investigation/011213.binladen.transcript.html (9 November 2001)
2000s, 2002

People , Nature , Strong

“It is the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: "None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me," he says; "the horse for me to own must show some spirit" in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Symposium 17–19 [= 2.10]
Xenophon

Animals

“Now there was fought a battle such as men have not seen the like. And the earth was covered with steel, and arrows fell from the clouds like hail, and the ground was torn with hoofs, and blood flowed like water upon the plains. And the dead lay around in masses, and the feet of the horses could not stir because of them.”

Ferdowsi book Shahnameh

Translation of Helen Zimmern http://classics.mit.edu/Ferdowsi/kings.14.defeatafrasiyab.html
Shahnameh

Men , Water , Dead

“I'm sick of this. Call me what you like, say I'm without honor, I don't care. I'm not getting on any more horses to whack you people with a stick.”

Tamora Pierce Squire

Source: Squire

People

“I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse's good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 36e

Life , Nature

“It was one thing to snuggle a little when the world seemed about to end, and quite another to explain to her parents that she wanted to date an ancient magical horse.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Keys to the Demon Prison

World , Parent

“Most horses don't walk backwards voluntarily, because what they can't see doesn't exist.”

Terry Pratchett book Soul Music

Source: Soul Music

“The man who cannot visualize a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

“The face staring back at me isn't beautiful but she isn't something that would scare the horses, either.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Beauty

“I have no objection to anyone’s sex life as long as they don’t practice it in the street and frighten the horses.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Life , Sex

“They had almost reached their horses when Neal's unmistakable drawl sounded through the stable: "Joren is so pretty. Say, Garvey, are you two friends because you can have him?”

Tamora Pierce book Page

Source: Page

“Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again”

Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking-Glass

Source: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

Men

“Sometimes a wild horse needs to feel that his rider is just a little bit wilder.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: Ruby

Feeling

“Blame it or praise it, there is no denying the wild horse in us.”

Virginia Woolf book Jacob's Room

Source: Jacob's Room

“I knew it!" He pumps a fist into the air. "You've fallen in love with me. You want to have my babies. We'll get a team of horses and a covered wagon and we'll journey to South America and raise goats.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

Love , Baby

“You speak horse?" Hazel asked.
"Speaking to horses is a Poseidon thing," Percy said. "Uh, I mean a Neptune thing."
"Then you and Arion should get along fine," Hazel said. "He's a son of Neptune too."
Percy turned pale. "Excuse me?”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

“All the pale horses of the apocalypse have stormed through my life, revolution, starvation, devaluation of currency and terror, epidemics, emigration; I have seen the great ideologies of the masses grow and spread out before my eyes. Fascism in Italy, National Socialism in Germany, Bolshevism in Russia, and, above all, that archpestilence, nationalism, which poisoned our flourishing European culture.”

Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) Austrian writer

The World of Yesterday [Die Welt von Gestern] (1942), p. 10, as translated by Marion Sonnenfeld

Life

“So far as living instruments of labour are concerned, for instance horses, their reproduction is timed by nature itself. Their average lifetime as instruments of labour is determined by the laws of nature. As soon as this term has expired they must be replaced by new ones. A horse cannot be replaced piecemeal; it must be replaced by another horse.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. II, Ch. VIII, p. 174.
(Buch II) (1893)

Law , Nature , Time

“All around the circle, feeding on the green, green grass were fat and happy horses…”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)

Grass , Happiness

“I'll just imagine he had an operation. The horn was removed to make him feel less — freakish! Now he will feel more at home with the other horses, the ones that don't have horns…”

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie

Laura, Scene Seven
The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Feeling , Home , Imagination

“Animals are innocence incarnate. This horse is like an enormous child, and if one wanted to point out life's innocence face to face, one would have to typify, not a little child, but a horse.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XIV - The Ruins

Life , Animals

“It will be a very hard thing to leave the country that God gave us. Our friends are buried there, and we hate to leave these grounds…. There is something strong for us — that fool band of soldiers that cleared out our lodges and killed our women and children. This is hard on us. There at Sand Creek — White Antelope and many other chiefs lie there; our women and children lie there. Our lodges were destroyed there, and our horses were taken from us there, and I do not feel disposed to go right off to a new country and leave them.”

Little Raven (Arapaho leader) (1810–1889) Southern Arapaho chief

At the signing of the Little Arkansas Treaty (October 1865), as quoted in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970), p. 100

Women , God , Hate , Children

“It is not also taught you in Scripture, that you should desire St. Rock to preserve you from the pestilence, to pray to St. Barbarra to defend you from thunder or gun-shot, to offer St. Loy an horse of wax, a pig to St. Anthony, a candle to St, Sithine. But I should be too long, if I were to rehearse unto you all the superstitions that have grown out of the invocation and praying to saints departed, wherewith men have been seduced, and God's honour given to creatures.
This was also no small abuse that we called the images by the names of the things, whom they did represent. For we were won't to say, "This is St. Ann's altar;"-"My father is gone a pilgrimage to our Lady of Walsingham;"-" In our church St. James standeth on the right hand of the high altar." These speeches we were wont to use, although they be not to be commended. For St. Austin in the exposition of the 113th Psalm affirmeth, that they who do call such images, as the carpenter hath made, do change the truth of God into a lie. It is not also taught you in all Scripture.
Thus, good children, I have declared how we were wont to abuse images, not that hereby I condemn your fathers, who were men of great devotion, and had an earnest love towards God, although their zeal in all points was not ruled and governed by true knowledge, but they were seduced and blinded partly by the common ignorance that reigned in their time, partly by the covetousness of their teachers, who abused the simplicity of the unlearned people to the maintenance of their own lucre and glory. But this be profitable, for if they had, either Christ would have taught it or the Holy Ghost would have revealed it unto the Apostles, which they did not. And if they did, the Apostles were very negligent that would not make some mention of it, and speak some good word for images, seeing that they speak so many against them. And by this means Anti-christ and his holy Papists had more knowledge or fervent zeal to give s godly things ad profitable for us, than had the very holy saints of Christ, yea more than Christ himself and the Holy Ghost. Now forasmuch, good children, as images be neither necessary nor profitable in our churches and temples, nor were not used at the beginning in Christ's nor the Apostles' time, nor many years after, and that at length they were brought in by bishops of Rome, maugre emperors' teeth; and seeing also, that they be very slanderous to Christ's religion, for by them the name of God is blasphemed among the infidels, Turks, and Jews, which because of our images do call Christian religion, idolatry and worshiping of images: and for as much also, as they have been so wonderfully abused within this realm to the high contumely and dishonor of God, and have been great cause of blindness and of much contention among the King's Majesty's loving subjects and are like so to be still, if they should remain: and chiefly seeing God's word speaketh so much against them, you may hereby right well consider what great causes and ground the King's Majesty had to take them away within his realm, following here in the example of the godly King Hezekias, who brake down the brazen serpent, when he saw it worshiped, and was therefore praised of God, notwithstanding at the first the same was made and set up by God's commandment, and was not only a remembrance of God's benefits, before received, but also a figure of Christ to come. And not only Hezekias, but also Manasses, and Jehosaphat, and Josias, the best kings that were of the Jews, did pull down images in the time of their reign.”

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury

The Life, Martyrdom, and Selections from the Writings of Thomas Cranmer https://books.google.com/books?id=FvNeAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=The+Life,+Martyrdom,+and+Selections+from+the+Writings+of+Thomas+Cranmer+...&source=bl&ots=LbXiMjz5Zp&sig=0pi5SHuxfdt_YUoiJcxvLgr7x5E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzmZL_wsfaAhVl6YMKHWubBkcQ6AEILDAB by Thomas Cranmer, p.139-142, (1809)

Love , Men , God , Children

“"This day you become knights!" he laughed fiercely, pointing with his dripping sword towards the hillmen horses, herded nearby. "Mount and follow me to hell!"”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Black Colossus" (1933)

Hell

“What an excellent horse do they lose, for want of address and boldness to manage him! … I could manage this horse better than others do.”

Alexander the Great (-356–-323 BC) King of Macedon

Statement upon seeing Bucephalas being led away as useless and beyond training, as quoted in Lives by Plutarch, as translated by Arthur Hugh Clough

“I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded, in this connection, of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Reply to delegation from the National Union League approving and endorsing "the nominations made by the Union National Convention at Baltimore." New York Times, Herald, and Tribune (10 June 1864) Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 7 http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;rgn=div1;view=text;idno=lincoln7;node=lincoln7%3A852
To a delegation of the National Union League who congratulated him on his nomination as the Republican candidate for President, June 9, 1864. As given by J. F. Rhodes—Hist. of the U. S. from the Compromise of 1850, Volume IV, p. 370. Same in Nicolay and Hay Lincoln's Complete Works, Volume II, p. 532. Different version in Appleton's Cyclopedia. Raymond—Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln, Chapter XVIII, p. 500. (Ed. 1865) says Lincoln quotes an old Dutch farmer, "It was best not to swap horses when crossing a stream".
Variant: I do not allow myself to suppose that either the convention or the League, have concluded to decide that I am either the greatest or the best man in America, but rather they have concluded it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap. note
Source: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;rgn=div1;view=text;idno=lincoln7;node=lincoln7%3A852 Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 7

Country

“I am frozen by a mass which supports me. My elbow sinks into it. It is the horse's belly; its rigid leg obliquely bars the narrow circle from which my eyes cannot escape. Ah, it is dead! It seems to me that my breast is empty, yet still there is an echo in my heart. What I am looking for is life.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XV - An Apparition

Life , Support , Heart , Dead

“As a strong horse that has often won on the last lap at Olympia is now resting, tired out by old age.”
Sicut fortis equus, spatio qui saepe supremo Vicit Olympia, nunc senio confectus quiescit.

Ennius (-239–-169 BC) Roman writer

As quoted by Cicero in De Senectute, Chapter V (tr. K. Volk)

Age , Strong

“Circus, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Women , Men , Children , Fools

“He seems to think that posterity is a pack-horse, always ready to be loaded.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech in the House of Commons (3 June 1862)
1860s

Thinking

“I am a libertine, but I am not a criminal nor a murderer, and since I am compelled to set my apology alongside my vindication, I shall therefore say that it might well be possible that those who condemn me as unjustly as I have been might themselves be unable to offset the infamies by good works as clearly established as those I can contrast to my errors. I am a libertine, but three families residing in your area have for five years lived off my charity, and I have saved them from the farthest depths of poverty. I am a libertine, but I have saved a deserter from death, a deserter abandoned by his entire regiment and by his colonel. I am a libertine, but at Evry, with your whole family looking on, I saved a child—at the risk of my life—who was on the verge of being crushed beneath the wheels of a runaway horse-drawn cart, by snatching the child from beneath it. I am a libertine, but I have never compromised my wife’s health. Nor have I been guilty of the other kinds of libertinage so often fatal to children’s fortunes: have I ruined them by gambling or by other expenses that might have deprived them of, or even by one day foreshortened, their inheritance? Have I managed my own fortune badly, as long as I have had a say in the matter? In a word, did I in my youth herald a heart capable of the atrocities of which I today stand accused?… How therefore do you presume that, from so innocent a childhood and youth, I have suddenly arrived at the ultimate of premeditated horror? No, you do not believe it. And yet you who today tyrannize me so cruelly, you do not believe it either: your vengeance has beguiled your mind, you have proceeded blindly to tyrannize, but your heart knows mine, it judges it more fairly, and it knows full well it is innocent.”

Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French novelist and philosopher

This passage comes from a letter addressed to his wife. It was written during his imprisonment at the Bastille.
"L’Aigle, Mademoiselle…"

Life , Death , Children , Health

“I am distinctly opposed to visibly arrogant and arbitrary extremes of government—but this is simply because I wish the safety of an artistic and intellectual civilisation to be secure, not because I have any sympathy with the coarse-grained herd who would menace the civilisation if not placated by sops. Surely you can see the profound and abysmal difference between this emotional attitude and the attitude of the democratic reformer who becomes wildly excited over the "wrongs of the masses". This reformer has uppermost in his mind the welfare of those masses themselves—he feels with them, takes up a mental-emotional point of view as one of them, regards their advancement as his prime objective independently of anything else, and would willingly sacrifice the finest fruits of the civilisation for the sake of stuffing their bellies and giving them two cinema shows instead of one per day. I, on the other hand, don't give a hang about the masses except so far as I think deliberate cruelty is coarse and unaesthetic—be it towards horses, oxen, undeveloped men, dogs, negroes, or poultry. All that I care about is the civilisation—the state of development and organisation which is capable of gratifying the complex mental-emotional-aesthetic needs of highly evolved and acutely sensitive men. Any indignation I may feel in the whole matter is not for the woes of the downtrodden, but for the threat of social unrest to the traditional institutions of the civilisation. The reformer cares only for the masses, but may make concessions to the civilisation. I care only for the civilisation, but may make concessions to the masses. Do you not see the antipodal difference between the two positions? Both the reformer and I may unite in opposing an unworkably arrogant piece of legislation, but the motivating reasons will be absolutely antithetical. He wants to give the crowd as much as can be given them without wrecking all semblance of civilisation, whereas I want to give them only as much as can be given them without even slightly impairing the level of national culture. … He works for as democratic a government as possible; I for as aristocratic a one as possible.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

But both recognise the limitations of possibility.
Letter to Woodburn Harris (25 February-1 March 1929), in Selected Letters II, 1925-1929 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 289-290
Non-Fiction, Letters

Men , Dogs , Feeling , Motivation

“Contrary to what you may assume, I am not a pessimist but an indifferentist—that is, I don't make the mistake of thinking that the resultant of the natural forces surrounding and governing organic life will have any connexion with the wishes or tastes of any part of that organic life-process. Pessimists are just as illogical as optimists; insomuch as both envisage the aims of mankind as unified, and as having a direct relationship (either of frustration or of fulfilment) to the inevitable flow of terrestrial motivation and events. That is—both schools retain in a vestigial way the primitive concept of a conscious teleology—of a cosmos which gives a damn one way or the other about the especial wants and ultimate welfare of mosquitos, rats, lice, dogs, men, horses, pterodactyls, trees, fungi, dodos, or other forms of biological energy.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to James F. Morton (1929), quoted in "H.P. Lovecraft, a Life" by S.T. Joshi, p. 483
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.

Life , Men , School , Dogs

“I do not want to make a stone horse that is trying to and cannot smell the air. How lovely is the horse’s sensitive nose, the dogs moving ears and deep eyes; but to me these are not stone forms and the love of them and the emotion can only be expressed in more abstract terms. I do not want to make a machine that cannot fulfil its essential purpose; but to make exactly the right relation of masses, a living thing in stone, to express my awareness and thought of these things.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

Quote of Hepworth in her text: 'Unit One', 1934; as cited in Voicing our visions, - Writings by women artists, ed. by Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York 1991, p. 278
1932 - 1946

Love , Dogs

“…this bull is a bull and this horse is a horse… If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Quoted in: Paul Jones (2011), The Sociology of Architecture: Constructing Identities. p. 47.
Other explanation by Picasso of the Guernica.
Quotes, 1930's

Idea , Painting

“If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn't go and look at horses. They'd sit in their studies and say to themselves, "what would I do if I were a horse?"”

Ronald H. Coase (1910–2013) British economist and author

Ronald Coase in speech to the "International Society of New Institutional Economics" the 17 September 1999, Washington DC. He claims he was quoting fellow economist Ely Devons which reportedly said this in a meeting
1990s and later

Study

“I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works. You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we're counting ships. It's: What are our capabilities?”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Third presidential debate http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/presidential-debate-full-transcript/story?id=17538888, Lynn University, Boca Raton, Florida, , quoted in * 2012-10-23
Horses, bayonets, and battleships
Prachi
Gupta
Salon
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/23/horses_bayonets_and_battleships/
2012-10-24
2012

Game , Question , Nature , Thinking

“This place is hell. They herd you around like cattle; they order you around like dogs; they work you like horses; and they feed you like hogs.”

James Jones (1921–1977) American author

Letter after joining the Army (1939), quoted by Peggy Noonan in "From 'Eternity' to Here" in The Wall Street Journal (25 May 2006) http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110008422

Dogs , Hell

“Then the bay horse spoke to me again and said: "See how your horses all come dancing!" I looked, and there were horses, horses everywhere — a whole skyfull of horses dancing around me.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)

Dance

“So now, Athenian men, more than on my own behalf must I defend myself, as some may think, but on your behalf, so that you may not make a mistake concerning the gift of god by condemning me. For if you kill me, you will not easily find another such person at all, even if to say in a ludicrous way, attached on the city by the god, like on a large and well-bred horse, by its size and laziness both needing arousing by some gadfly; in this way the god seems to have fastened me on the city, some such one who arousing and persuading and reproaching each one of you I do not stop the whole day settling down all over. Thus such another will not easily come to you, men, but if you believe me, you will spare me; but perhaps you might possibly be offended, like the sleeping who are awakened, striking me, believing Anytus, you might easily kill, then the rest of your lives you might continue sleeping, unless the god caring for you should send you another.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

30e
Plato, Apology

Men , God , Way , Thinking

“To a young actor: How tall are you without your horse? Six foot, seven inches. Never mind the six feet. Let's talk about the seven inches!”

Mae West (1893–1980) American actress and sex symbol

Myra Breckinridge (1970)

“[Amazons] They were conquerors, horse tamers, and huntresses who gave birth to children but did not nurse or rear them. They were an extreme, feminist wing of a young human race, whose other extreme wing consisted of the stringent patriarchies.”

Helen Diner (1874–1948) Austrian writer and historian

Mothers and Amazons; the first feminine history of culture https://archive.org/details/mothersamazons00ecks, p. 123.

Children , Birth

“People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals. There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway.”

Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete

Interview (1971); also quoted in "Owens pierced a myth" by Larry Schwartz http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016393.html in ESPN SportsCentury
1970s

People

“"One cave she wolf go too farther, and I wolf leaf her" he said to his fave rave horse. Of course the horse didn't answer, because as you know they cannot speak, least of all to a garlic eating, stinking, little yellow greasy fascist bastard catholic Spaniard. They soon made it up howevans and Jesus and wee Spastic were once morphia unitely in a love that knew no Suzie. The only thing that puzzled Jesus was why his sugarboot got so annoyed when he called her his little Spastic in public.”

John Lennon book A Spaniard in the Works

"A Spaniard In The Works" from A Spaniard In The Works (1965); this has sometimes been misquoted as if Lennon were speaking specifically about Jesus Christ, when in fact, it is part of the odd narration of an odd story with elements of satire, about a Spanish groom named "Jesus El Pifico".

Love , Wolf

“A dark horse, which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Book I, Chapter 5.
Books, Coningsby (1844), The Young Duke (1831)

Past

“It is a complaint without foundation that "to very few people is granted the faculty of comprehending what is imparted to them, and that most, through dullness of understanding, lose their labor and their time." On the contrary, you will find the greater number of men both ready in conceiving and quick in learning, since such quickness is natural to man. As birds are born to fly, horses to run, and wild beasts to show fierceness, so to us peculiarly belong activity and sagacity of understanding.”
Falsa enim est querela, paucissimis hominibus vim percipiendi quae tradantur esse concessam, plerosque vero laborem ac tempora tarditate ingenii perdere. Nam contra plures reperias et faciles in excogitando et ad discendum promptos. Quippe id est homini naturale, ac sicut aves ad volatum, equi ad cursum, ad saevitiam ferae gignuntur, ita nobis propria est mentis agitatio atque sollertia.

Quintilian (35–96) ancient Roman rhetor

Book I, Chapter I, 1; translation by Rev. John Selby Watson
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)

Men , People , Understanding , Nature

“The celebrated Mr. K.
Performs his feat on Saturday at Bishops Gate
The Hendersons will dance and sing
As Mr. Kite flies through the ring don't be late
Messrs. K and H. assure the public
Their production will be second to none
And of course Henry the Horse dances the waltz!”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

"Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" (1967)
Lyrics

Singing , Dance

“I think it's very hard to allow God to break us. I think it's very hard to be broken. And I think that who the Lord loves He chastens, and that if we'll never be broken we'll never be saved. And that God doesn't break us because He hates us, or because He's angry at us, but we have to be broken, just like you have to break a horse.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

Wheaton, Illinois http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/wheaton-illinois-sep1590-backup-copy.html (September 15, 1990)
In Concert

Love , God , Hate , Thinking

“Neither will the horse be adjudged to be generous, that is sumptuously adorned, but the horse whose nature is illustrious; nor is the man worthy who possesses great wealth, but he whose soul is generous.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

"Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus" (1904)
Florilegium

Soul , Nature , Wealth

“Suddenly I am pushed by a movement of the horse on which I am lying. I see that he has turned his great head aside; he is mournfully eating grass. I saw this horse but lately in the middle of the regiment — I know him by the white in his mane — rearing and whinnying like the true battle-chargers; and now, broken somewhere, he is silent as the truly unhappy are.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XIV - The Ruins

Lying , Grass

“The horse carries the rider with power and speed. But the rider controls the horse. Talent carries the artist to great heights with power and speed. But the artist directs his talent. That is the element of 'consciousness', of 'calculation' in the work – or whatever else one chooses to call it.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Source: 1916 -1920, Autobiography', 1918, p. 31

Speed

“More often than not, the classes of objects encountered in the real physical world do not have precisely deﬁned criteria of membership. For example, the class of animals clearly includes dogs, horses, birds, etc. as its members, and clearly excludes such objects as rocks, ﬂuids, plants, etc. However, such objects as starfish, bacteria, etc. have an ambiguous status with respect to the class of animals. The same kind of ambiguity arises in the case of a number such as 10 in relation to the “class” of all real numbers which are much greater than 1.”

Lotfi A. Zadeh (1921–2017) Electrical engineer and computer scientist

Source: 1960s, Fuzzy sets (1965), p. 338

World , Dogs , Bird , Animals

“Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

De Libero Arbitrio (388 - 395)

“I'm not a princess,
This ain't a fairytale.
I'm not the one you'll sweep off her feet,
Lead her up the stairwell.
This ain't Hollywood,
This is a small town.
I was a dreamer before
You went and let me down.
Now it's too late for you and your white horse
To come around.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

White Horse, written by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose.
Song lyrics, Fearless (2008)

Fairytale , Princess

“I started to "write" even before I knew the alphabet. I would dip a pen in ink and scribble. I also liked to draw — horses, houses, dogs. The Sabbath was an ordeal for me, because it is forbidden to write on that day.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991) Polish-born Jewish-American author

"A Day of Pleasure" (1996)

Dogs , Drawing , Housing

“Try as you may, you don't get down as you would from a horse, you get down as you would from a house afire. You make a spectacle of yourself every time.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"Taming the Bicycle" (1917)

Time , Housing

“And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

2 Kings 2:11
Bible References

“383. The horse thinkes one thing, and he that sadles him another.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Thinking

“In the evening you hear the scream of bats,
Two black horses jump in the meadow,
The red maple rustles.
To the traveller the small inn appears by the wayside.
Wonderful the taste of young wine and nuts,
Wonderful: stumbling drunk into darkening wood.
Through black branches painful bells sound,
On the face dew drips.”

Georg Trakl (1887–1914) austrian poet

"Towards Evening My Heart," Poems (1913)
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2014/10/29/wild-heart-turning-white-georg-trakl-and-cocaine/

Pain , Travel , Appearance , Wine

“Part of the loot went for gambling, part for horses, and part for women. The rest I spent foolishly.”

George Raft (1901–1980) American actor

George Raft explaining how he spent a $10 million fortune.
Quoted in Mardy Grothe, Viva la repartee: clever comebacks and witty retorts from history's great wits and wordsmiths (2005), page 83 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aZpmpt7ksr8C&pg=PA83&dq=%22Part+of+the+loot+went+for+gambling,+part+for+horses%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hBgsT4HyB4_Y8QPpy-HoDg&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Part%20of%20the%20loot%20went%20for%20gambling%2C%20part%20for%20horses%22&f=false

Women , Parting

“It reminded him of the man who had a poor old lean, bony, spavined horse, with swelled legs. He was asked what he was going to do with such a miserable beast, the poor creature would die. 'Do?' said he. 'I'm going to fat him up; don't you see that I have got him seal fat as high as the knees?”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Well, they've got the Union dissolved up to the ankle, but no farther!
1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

“Now answer me this. Do you think that the same holds of horses? Do people in general improve them, whereas one particular person corrupts them or makes them worse? Or is it wholly the opposite: one particular person - or the very few who are horse trainers - is able to improve them, whereas the majority of people, if they have to do with horses and make use of them, make them worse? Isn't that true, Meletus, both of horses and of all other animals? Of course it is, whether you and Anytus say so or not. Indeed, our young people are surely in a very happy situation if only one person corrupts them, whereas all the rest benefit them.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

25b
Plato, Apology

People , Thinking , Animals , Personality

“As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and perceived that they could be much more easily converted to our holy faith by gentle means than by force, I presented them with some red caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith they were much delighted, and became wonderfully attached to us. Afterwards they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots, balls of cotton thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged for articles we gave them, such as glass beads, and hawk's bells; which trade was carried on with the utmost good will. But they seemed on the whole to me, to be a very poor people. They all go completely naked, even the women, though I saw but one girl. All whom I saw were young, not above thirty years of age, well made, with fine shapes and faces; their hair short, and coarse like that of a horse's tail, combed toward the forehead, except a small portion which they suffer to hang down behind, and never cut. Some paint themselves with black, which makes them appear like those of the Canaries, neither black nor white; others with white, others with red, and others with such colors as they can find. Some paint the face, and some the whole body; others only the eyes, and others the nose. Weapons they have none, nor are acquainted with them, for I showed them swords which they grasped by the blades, and cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron, their javelins being without it, and nothing more than sticks, though some have fish-bones or other things at the ends. They are all of a good size and stature, and handsomely formed. I saw some with scars of wounds upon their bodies, and demanded by signs the of them; they answered me in the same way, that there came people from the other islands in the neighborhood who endeavored to make prisoners of them, and they defended themselves. I thought then, and still believe, that these were from the continent. It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion. They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my return to carry home six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn our language. I saw no beasts in the island, nor any sort of animals except parrots.”

Cristoforo Colombo (1451–1506) Explorer, navigator, and colonizer

12 October 1492; This entire passage is directly quoted from Columbus in the summary by Bartolomé de Las Casas
Journal of the First Voyage

Women , People , Age , Faith

“He was the chief of all the horses; and when he snorted, it was a flash of lightning and his eyes were like the sunset star.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)

Star

“They will never shoulder a musket again in anger, and if Grant is wise, he will leave them their guns to shoot crows with and their horses to plow with. It would do no harm.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Regarding the treatment of former Confederate soldiers. In Richmond, Virginia (April 4, 1865), as quoted in Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War https://archive.org/download/incidentsanecdot00port/incidentsanecdot00port.pdf (1885), by David Dixon Porter, p. 312
1860s, Tour of Richmond (1865)

Anger

“In England women are still occasionally used instead of horses for hauling canal boats, because the labour required to produce horses and machines is an accurately known quantity, while that required to maintain the women of the surplus population is below all calculation.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. I, Ch. 15, Section 2, pg. 430.
(Buch I) (1867)

Women

“Of the horse I will say nothing because I know the times.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

This relates to a huge equestrian statue that Leonardo had been commissioned to design and create, but which was not cast until over 500 years later, in 1999, when two huge statues based upon his design were finally made. (c.1497)
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XI The Notes on Sculpture

Time

“It should not surprise Muslims if doubts were entertained about their loyalty. They could not ride on two horses.”

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1875–1950) Indian freedom fighter who forged united India

Patel complaining about the Indian Muslims' silence over Kashmir in a speech in Lucknow in 1948, quoted in B.D. Graham: Hindu Nationalism and quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p.349

Loyalty

“The pilgrims were human beings. Otherwise they would have acted differently. They had come a long and difficult journey, and now when the journey was nearly finished, and they learned that the main thing they had come for had ceased to exist, they didn't do as horses or cats or angle-worms would probably have done — turn back and get at something profitable — no, anxious as they had before been to see the miraculous fountain, they were as much as forty times as anxious now to see the place where it had used to be. There is no accounting for human beings.”

Mark Twain book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Ch. 22 http://www.literature.org/authors/twain-mark/connecticut/chapter-22.html
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)

Cats , Learning , Time

“He studied and nearly mastered the six books of Euclid since he was a member of Congress. He regrets his want of education, and does what he can to supply the want. In his tenth year he was kicked by a horse, and apparently killed for a time.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, A Short Autobiography (1860)
Context: Abraham now thinks that the aggregate of all his schooling did not amount to one year. He was never in a college or academy as a student, and never inside of a college or academy building till since he had a law license. What he has in the way of education he has picked up. After he was twenty-three and had separated from his father, he studied English grammar — imperfectly of course, but so as to speak and write as well as he now does. He studied and nearly mastered the six books of Euclid since he was a member of Congress. He regrets his want of education, and does what he can to supply the want. In his tenth year he was kicked by a horse, and apparently killed for a time.<!--pp. 9-10

Books , Education , Study , Time

“It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.”

Herodotus book Histories

Book 8, Ch. 98
variant: Not snow, no, nor rain, nor heat, nor night keeps them from accomplishing their appointed courses with all speed. (Book 8, Ch. 98)
Paraphrase: "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" ”
Appears carved over entrance to Central Post Office building in New York City.
The Histories

Men , Speed

“I think, therefore, that we ought to take great numbers of hoplites, both from Athens and from our allies, and not merely from our subjects, but also any we may be able to get for love or money in the Peloponnesus, and great numbers also of archers and slingers, to oppose the Sicilian horse.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book VI, 6.22-[1]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VI

Love , Money , Thinking

“Political Economy regards the proletarian … like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being.”

Karl Marx book Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

First Manuscript – Wages of Labour, p. 6.
Paris Manuscripts (1844)
Context: Political Economy regards the proletarian … like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle. … (1) What is the meaning, in the development of mankind, of this reduction of the greater part of mankind to abstract labor? (2) What mistakes are made by the piecemeal reformers, who either want to raise wages and thereby improve the situation of the working class, or — like Proudhon — see equality of wages as the goal of social revolution?.

Time

“It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn't even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards.”

Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete

Jesse Owens, Champion Athlete (1990)
Context: It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn't even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards. … The secret is, first, get a thoroughbred horse because they are the most nervous animals on earth. Then get the biggest gun you can find and make sure the starter fires that big gun right by the nervous thoroughbred's ear.

Animals

“Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)
Context: Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one. He was on his horse in that world, and the horse and himself on it and the trees and the grass and the stones and everything were made of spirit, and nothing was hard, and everything seemed to float. His horse was standing still there, and yet it danced around like a horse made only of shadow, and that is how he got his name, which does not mean that his horse was crazy or wild, but that in his vision it danced around in that queer way.
It was this vision that gave him his great power, for when he went into a fight, he had only to think of that world to be in it again, so that he could go through anything and not be hurt. Until he was killed at the Soldiers' Town on White River, he was wounded only twice, once by accident and both times by some one of his own people when he was not expecting trouble and was not thinking; never by an enemy. He was fifteen years old when he was wounded by accident; and the other time was when he was a young man and another man was jealous of him because the man's wife liked Crazy Horse.
They used to say that he carried a sacred stone with him, like one he had seen in some vision, and that when he was in danger, the stone always got heavy and protected him somehow. That, they used to say, was the reason that no horse he ever rode lasted very long. I do not know about this; maybe people only thought it; but it is a fact that he never kept one horse long. They wore out. I think it was only the power of his great vision that made him great.

World , Dreams

“Wild horses couldn't drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away.”

Mick Jagger (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

"Wild Horses (The Rolling Stones song)" (co-written with Keith Richards), on Sticky Fingers (1971).
Lyrics
Context: Childhood living is easy to do
The things you wanted, I bought them for you
Graceless lady, you know who I am
You know I can't let you slide through my hands
Wild horses couldn't drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away.