„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)
Quotes about horses
A collection of quotes on the topic of horse.
Related topicsTotal 841 quotes horse, filter:
„The man who cannot visualize a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot.“
— André Breton French writer 1896 - 1966
„Gay marriage is legal in 6 states, but having sex with a horse is legal in 23 states. Good job, America.“
— Jim Carrey Canadian-American actor, comedian, and producer 1962
„It should not surprise Muslims if doubts were entertained about their loyalty. They could not ride on two horses.“
— Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Indian freedom fighter who forged united India 1875 - 1950
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
„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 Austrian Romantic composer 1756 - 1791
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
„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 austrian poet 1887 - 1914
"Towards Evening My Heart," Poems (1913)
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2014/10/29/wild-heart-turning-white-georg-trakl-and-cocaine/
„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) Southern Arapaho chief 1810 - 1889
At the signing of the Little Arkansas Treaty (October 1865), as quoted in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970), p. 100
„All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.“
— Louis Armstrong American jazz trumpeter, composer and singer 1901 - 1971
Variant: All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.
„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 Electrical engineer and computer scientist 1921 - 2017
Source: 1960s, Fuzzy sets (1965), p. 338
„horses: dangerous on both ends and crafty in the middle“
— Arthur Conan Doyle Scottish physician and author 1859 - 1930
„But if cattle and horses and lions had hands
or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do,
horses like horses and cattle like cattle
also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies
of such a sort as the form they themselves have.“
— Xenophanes Presocratic philosopher -570 - -475 BC
Fragment 15 (D-K)
Original: (el) ἀλλ᾽ εἰ χεῖρας ἔχον βόες <ἵπποι τ᾽> ἠὲ λέοντες
ἢ γράψαι χείρεσσι καὶ ἔργα τελεῖν ἅπερ ἄνδρες,
ἵπποι μέν θ᾽ ἵπποισι βόες δέ τε βουσὶν ὁμοίας
καί <κε> θεῶν ἰδέας ἔγραφον καὶ σώματ᾽ ἐποίουν
τοιαῦθ᾽ οἷόν περ καὐτοὶ δέμας εἶχον <ἕκαστοι>.
„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.“
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
„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.“
— Isidore of Seville, book Etymologiae
Bk. 11, ch. 4, sect. 3; p. 221.
Etymologiae
Original: (la) 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.
„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 Russian painter 1866 - 1944
Source: 1916 -1920, Autobiography', 1918, p. 31
„I've married a friggin horse. And he bites.“
— P. C. Cast, book Divine By Mistake
Source: Divine By Mistake
„If I paint a wild horse, you might not see the horse… but surely you will see the wildness!“
— Pablo Picasso Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer 1881 - 1973
„I love a bright fort on a shining slope,
Where a fair, shy girl loves watching gulls.
I'd like to go, though I get no great love,
On a longed-for visit on a slender white horse
To seek my love of the quiet laughter,
To recite love, since it's come my way.“
— Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd poet
Karafy gaer wennglaer o du gwennylan;
myn yd gar gwyldec gweled gwylan
yd garwny uyned, kenym cared yn rwy.
Ry eitun ouwy y ar veingann
y edrtch uy chwaer chwerthin egwan,
y adrawt caru, can doeth yn rann.
"Awdl V" (Ode 5), line 1; translation from Gwyn Williams (trans.) Welsh Poems, 6th Century to 1600 (London: Faber & Faber, 1973) p. 43.
Original: (cy) Karafy gaer wennglaer o du gwennylan;<br/>myn yd gar gwyldec gweled gwylan<br/>yd garwny uyned, kenym cared yn rwy.<br/>Ry eitun ouwy y ar veingann<br/>y edrtch uy chwaer chwerthin egwan,<br/>y adrawt caru, can doeth yn rann.
„Do you consider, my dear maggotty sir [cosy-name for his friend], what a deal of work history pictures require to what little dirty subjects of coal horses and jackasses and such figures as I fill up with; no, you don't consider anything about that part of the story... But to be serious (as I know you love to be), do you really think that a regular composition in the Landskip [landscape] way should ever be filled with History, or any figures but such as fill a place (I won't say stop a gap) or create a little business for the eye to be drawn from the trees in order to return to them with more glee.“
— Thomas Gainsborough English portrait and landscape painter 1727 - 1788
Quote from Gainsborough's letter to his friend William Jackson of Exeter, from Bath 23 Aug. 1767; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 379 (Appendix A - Letter I)
1755 - 1769