Quotes about horses
page 7

Robert Charles Wilson photo
Margaret Mead photo
Samuel Johnson photo
Kim Il-sung photo

“The people are the masters of the revolution in each country. It is like putting a cart before the horse that foreigners carry out the revolution for them. The revolution can neither be exported nor imported.”

Kim Il-sung (1912–1994) President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Quoted in Kim Il Sung, Master of Leadership (1976) by Takagi Takeo

Charles Darwin photo
Tsangyang Gyatso, 6th Dalai Lama photo

“Lassoes can catch the wild horses
that flee over the hills.
But nothing, not even incantations
can hold a wild beloved
who has stopped loving
her lover.”

Tsangyang Gyatso, 6th Dalai Lama (1683–1706) sixth Dalai Lama of Tibet

Source: Attributed, Poems of Sadness: The Erotic Verse of the Sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso tr. Paul Williams 2004, p.13

Leslie Feist photo
August Macke photo
Ezra Koenig photo
Eino Leino photo
Camille Paglia photo
Thomas Brooks photo
Mahmud of Ghazni photo
Lydia Maria Child photo

“Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house we go;
The horse knows the way,
To carry the sleigh,
Through the white and drifted snow.”

Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist

The New England Boy's Song About Thanksgiving Day http://www.potw.org/archive/potw64.html, st. 1, from Flowers for Children (1844-1846).
1840s

Kate Bush photo

“I am ice and dust. I am sky.
I can see horses wading through snowdrifts.
My broken hearts, my fabulous dances.
My fleeting song, fleeting.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, 50 Words for Snow (2011)

Charles Symmons photo

“O! trust not to the horse, my Trojan Friends!
Whate'er it means, it means but to deceive.
I dread the Grecians even when they give.”

Charles Symmons (1749–1826) Welsh poet

Book II, lines 66–68
The Æneis (1817)

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis photo

“Whenever I was upset by something in the papers, [Jack] always told me to be more tolerant, like a horse flicking away flies in the summer.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

Quoted in A Hero for Our Time (1983) by Ralph G Martin

Gough Whitlam photo

“The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race.”

Gough Whitlam (1916–2014) Australian politician, 21st Prime Minister of Australia

Written by Gough Whitlam for the London Daily Telegraph, (19 October 1989). (Andrews, 1993, p. 824)

Rudyard Kipling photo
Aurangzeb photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“Starting tomorrow, I'll be carefree and happy
Roaming the world, feeding my horse, chopping firewood
Starting tomorrow, I'll need nothing but rice and a few vegetables
In my house by the sea, warmed by the spring air”

Hai Zi (1964–1989) Chinese poet

《面朝大海,春暖花开》 ("Looking out to sea, warmed by the spring air"), trans. John Sexton http://www.china.org.cn/chinese/2011-02/01/content_26146460.htm.

Robert Mitchum photo
Alan Rusbridger photo

“There are plenty who think that, as our libel laws are cleaned up, smart lawyers are switching horses to privacy.”

Alan Rusbridger (1953) British newspaper editor

Rusbridger (2011), as cited in: John Steel (2013) Journalism and Free Speech. p. 92.
2010s

Marino Marini photo
Plutarch photo

“Cicero said loud-bawling orators were driven by their weakness to noise, as lame men to take horse.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Cicero
Roman Apophthegms

Walter de la Mare photo
Robert Burton photo

“England is a paradise for women and hell for horses; Italy a paradise for horses, hell for women, as the diverb goes.”

Section 3, member 1, subsection 2.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III

Adolf Galland photo

“To use a fighter as a fighter-bomber when the strength of the fighter arm is inadequate to achieve air superiority is putting the cart before the horse.”

Adolf Galland (1912–1996) German World War II general and fighter pilot

Quoted in "The First and the Last," 1954.
The First and the Last (1954)

Jeffrey Montgomery photo
Robert E. Howard photo

“My body seems a mere encumbrance to me; an imbecillic wagon, hitched to the horse of desire, which is the soul.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

From a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith (August 28, 1925)
Letters

Wassily Leontief photo

“Pouter, tumbler and fantail are from the same source;
The racer and hack may be traced to one horse;
So men were developed from monkeys of course,
Which nobody can deny.”

Charles Neaves (1800–1876) Scottish theologian, jurist and writer

Originally published in The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1872).

Peter Greenaway photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Thomas Jefferson photo
Samuel Johnson photo

“A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1754, p. 72 (n. 4)
Referring to critics
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Matt Ridley photo

“Most work for their belly, for cloth of cubit dimension
Some worship Lakshmi’s spouse for salvation
Lifting palanquins Is for their belly
Fighting powerful wrestlers is for the belly
Telling lies is for the belly
Thinking of Lord is for salvation
Concocting politics is for the belly
Riding elephant or horse is for the belly
Hurting other people is for belly
To pray Lord is for emancipation
Lifting heavy rocks is for the belly
Yelling loud is for the belly
Pray Purandara Vittala is for salvation
With pre-planned contemplation.”

Purandara Dasa (1484–1564) Music composer

In this composition Dasa describes the plight of the working class to work for their survival as the rich exploit them, as quoted here[Narayan, M.K.V., Lyrical Musings on Indic Culture: A Sociology Study of Songs of Sant Purandara Dasa, http://books.google.com/books?id=-r7AxJp6NOYC&pg=PA79, 1 January 2010, Readworthy, 978-93-80009-31-5, 85]

Robert Erskine Childers photo

“The cavalryman, is for practical purposes a compound of three factors; man, horse and rifle. The lance should go altogether.”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

"German Influence on British Cavalry", by Erskine Childers, Edward Arnold, (London, 1911), p. 215.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918)

Joseph Conrad photo
W.C. Fields photo

“I didn't squawk about the steak, dear. I merely said I didn't see that old horse that used to be tethered outside here.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

To a waitress, in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941)

Bob Dylan photo

“A change in the weather is known to be extreme; but what's the sense in changing horses in mid-stream?”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Blood on the Tracks (1975), You're a Big Girl Now

Henry Burchard Fine photo
Scott Kurtz photo

“My brain is hung like a horse!”

PvP, Tuesday, April 06, 2004 http://www.pvponline.com/comic/2004/04/06/tue-apr-06/
PvP (1998)

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“3031. It is Wit to pick a Lock, and steal a Horse; but it is Wisdom to let it alone.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1735) : The cunning man steals a horse, the wise man lets him alone.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Florence Nightingale photo
Craig Ferguson photo

“[The Secretariat horse character reveals his true identity, and it happens to be Bob Newhart. ]
Craig: Bob Newhart! What are you doing here?
Bob Newhart: Hey, Craig; it's your dream!”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

During the final episode, the ending of the classic sitcom Newhart was spoofed here; Craig, in his role as Nigel Wick from The Drew Carey Show, wakes up next to Drew and discovers his entire stint as host of the Late Late Show was all a bad dream.
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)

Harry Turtledove photo

“A horsefly can't do a horse much real damage, but it can drive it wild anyhow.”

Harry Turtledove (1949) American novelist, short story author, essayist, historian

Source: The United State of Atlantis (2008), p. 127

Richard Dawkins photo
Homér photo
Bill Bryson photo
Alexander Cockburn photo

“No chord in populism reverberates more strongly than the notion that the robust common sense of an unstained outsider is the best medicine for an ailing polity. Caligula doubtless got big cheers from the plebs when he installed his horse as proconsul.”

Alexander Cockburn (1941–2012) Leftist journalist and writer

"Obama's Speech; McCain's Palinomy," http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08302008.html CounterPunch (August 30 -31, 2008).

Rudyard Kipling photo

“We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: “It's clever, but is it Art?””

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

The Conundrum of the Workshops, Stanza 6.
Other works

Mrs Patrick Campbell photo

“Does it really matter what these affectionate people do — so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses!”

Mrs Patrick Campbell (1895–1940) British stage actress

Reply to a young actress who asserted that an older actor in a production showed too much affection for the leading man (c. 1910); as reported by Alan Dent in Mrs. Patrick Campbell, p. 78 (1961).
[horses]Variants: "My dear, I don't care what they do, so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."
"I don’t mind where people make love, so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."
"It doesn't make any difference what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."
"Does it really matter what these affectionate people do, so long as they don't do it on the street and frighten the horses?"
On the internet, a similar comment regarding politicians has been widely attributed to Victor Hugo, but without any definite sources. It appears to be a modern satirical invention, derived from Mrs. Campbell's statements.

Marino Marini photo
Bernard Cornwell photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington photo

“If a gentleman happens to be born in a stable, it does not follow that he should be called a horse.”

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) British soldier and statesman

As quoted in Genetic Studies in Joyce (1995) by David Hayman and Sam Slote. Though such remarks have often been quoted as Wellington's response on being called Irish, the earliest published sources yet found for similar comments are those about him attributed to an Irish politician:
The poor old Duke! what shall I say of him? To be sure he was born in Ireland, but being born in a stable does not make a man a horse.
Daniel O'Connell, in a speech (16 October 1843), as quoted in Shaw's Authenticated Report of the Irish State Trials (1844), p. 93 http://books.google.com/books?id=dpKbWonMghwC&pg=PA93&dq=%22+make+a+man+a+horse%22&num=100&ei=0YVZSIWXCIiSjgG37bGIDA
No, he is not an Irishman. He was born in Ireland; but being born in a stable does not make a man a horse.
Daniel O'Connell during a speech (16 October 1843), as quoted in Reports of State Trials: New Series Volume V, 1843 to 1844 (1893) "The Queen Against O'Connell and Others", p. 206 http://books.google.com/books?id=zWETAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT108&dq=%22+make+a+man+a+horse%22&num=100&ei=MohZSJ-PK4a4jgG-lLGJDA
Variants: If a man be born in a stable, that does not make him a horse.
Quoted as as an anonymous proverb in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899), p. 171
Because a man is born in a stable that does not make him a horse.
Quoted as a dubious statement perhaps made early in his career in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (1992) edited by John Simpson and Jennifer Speake, p. 162.
Misattributed

Jayapala photo
Clinton Edgar Woods photo
Ben Croshaw photo
George Fitzhugh photo

“You have seen bigger horses than his thirteen and a half, perhaps fourteen hands, his nine hundred pounds. You have seen handsomer profiles than this Roman nose, slightly convex. Burrs cling to his long sweeping tail. His coat is dark and unglossed. Yet look again, while he is still, for he will not be still long. Sense the vitality in those muscles, trembling beneath the skin; see the pride in that high head, hear the haughty command to his voice. For this is a wild horse, my friend. Once he claimed the western range. Then they took his range away from him. But nothing, no one claims him. He feels the wind and the air with his nose, with his ears, with his very soul, and what he feels is good. He tosses his head, once, quickly, and behind him his harem of six mares trot up to join him, and behind them, a yearling colt, a filly and two stork-legged foals. Coats dusty and chewed, tails spiked with bits of the desert, sage and nettle and leftover pine needles from winter climbs down from timberland. The Barb-nosed stallion led his family down to the waterhole. Not Barb from barbed wire, though perhaps the chewed skin was from barbed wire, but Barb from the Spanish horses from which he descended, brought to the New World over four hundred years ago, from the Barbary states of North Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Fez, Tripoli. Indians stole them from the Spaniards; the Barbs stole themselves free from the Indians. Running wild, a few still run free.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From Running Wild (1973) by Hano, p. 10
Other Topics

Marino Marini photo
John Heywood photo

“The grey mare is the better horse.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Part II, chapter 4.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Connie Willis photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Richard Summerbell photo
Mahmud of Ghazni photo

“The king, in his zeal to propagate the faith, now marched against the Hindoos of Nagrakote [Nagarkot Kangra], breaking down their idols and razing their temples. The fort, at that time denominated the Fort of Bheem, was closely invested by the Mahomedans, who had first laid waste the country around it with fire and sword.'…'In the year AH 402 (AD 1011), Mahmood resolved on the conquest of Tahnesur [Thanesar (Haryana)], in the kingdom of Hindoostan. It had reached the ears of the king that Tahnesur was held in the same veneration by idolaters, as Mecca by the faithful; that they had there set up a number of idols, the principal of which they called Jugsom, pretending that it had existed ever since the creation. Mahmood having reached Punjab, required, according to the subsisting treaty with Anundpal, that his army should not be molested on its march through his country…'The Raja's brother, with two thousand horse was also sent to meet the army, and to deliver the following message:- "My brother is the subject and tributary of the King, but he begs permission to acquaint his Majesty, that Tahnesur is the principal place of worship of the inhabitants of the country: that if it is required by the religion of Mahmood to subvert the religion of others, he has already acquitted himself of that duty, in the destruction of the temple of Nagrakote. But if he should be pleased to alter his resolution regarding Tahnesur, Anundpal promises that the amount of the revenues of that country shall be annually paid to Mahmood; that a sum shall also be paid to reimburse him for the expense of his expedition, besides which, on his own part he will present him with fifty elephants, and jewels to a considerable amount." Mahmood replied, "The religion of the faithful inculcates the following tenet: That in proportion as the tenets of the prophet are diffused, and his followers exert themselves in the subversion of idolatry, so shall be their reward in heaven; that, therefore, it behoved him, with the assistance of God, to root out the worship of idols from the face of all India. How then should he spare Tahnesur?"… This answer was communicated to the Raja of Dehly, who, resolving to oppose the invaders, sent messengers throughout Hindoostan to acquaint the other rajas that Mahmood, without provocation, was marching with a vast army to destroy Tahnesur, now under his immediate protection. He observed, that if a barrier was not expeditiously raised against this roaring torrent, the country of Hindoostan would be soon overwhelmed, and that it behoved them to unite their forces at Tahnesur, to avert the impending calamity….”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, first published in 1829, New Delhi Reprint 1981, Vol. I, pp. 27-37.
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“3273. Look not a given Horse in the Mouth.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Edward Carpenter photo

“Plato in his allegory of the soul—in the Phaedrus—though he apparently divides the passions which draw the human chariot into two classes, the heavenward and the earthward—figured by the white horse and the black horse respectively—does not recommend that the black horse should be destroyed or dismissed, but only that he (as well as the white horse) should be kept under due control by the charioteer. By which he seems to intend that there is a power in man which stands above and behind the passions, and under whose control alone the human being can safely move. In fact if the fiercer and so-called more earthly passions were removed, half the driving force would be gone from the chariot of the human soul. Hatred may be devilish at times—but after all the true value of it depends on what you hate, on the use to which the passion is put. Anger, though inhuman at one time is magnificent and divine at another. Obstinacy may be out of place in a drawing-room, but it is the latest virtue on a battlefield when an important position has to be held against the full brunt of the enemy. And Lust, though maniacal and monstrous in its aberrations, cannot in the last resort be separated from its divine companion, Love. To let the more amiable passions have entire sway notoriously does not do: to turn your cheek, too literally, to the smiter, is (pace Tolstoy) only to encourage smiting; and when society becomes so altruistic that everybody runs to fetch the coal-scuttle we feel sure that something has gone wrong. The white-washed heroes of our biographies with their many virtues and no faults do not please us. We have an impression that the man without faults is, to say the least, a vague, uninteresting being—a picture without light and shade—and the conventional semi-pious classification of character into good and bad qualities (as if the good might be kept and the bad thrown away) seems both inadequate and false.”

Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) British poet and academic

Defence of Criminals: A Criticism of Morality (1889)

George William Curtis photo
David Hume photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Robert Newman photo

“A new start," Pop said as they stopped at the corner and waited to cross over to where te horse and cart waited for them. "A new apartment, Thomas. A new life.”

Patricia Reilly Giff (1935) American children's writer

A new world to write about.
Source: Water Street (2006), Chapters 1-10, p. 17

William Penn photo

“Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

85
Fruits of Solitude (1682), Part I

Bem Cavalgar photo
Maurice Denis photo
Nathaniel Hawthorne photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“No more massive injections. Tiny children are not horses—one vaccine at a time, over time.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/507158396051927041 ], quoted in * 2018 Enchanted America: How Intuition and Reason Divide Our Politics J. Eric Oliver, Thomas J. Wood The University of Chicago Press 022657850X
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Donald Trump / Quotes / Donald Trump on social media / Twitter
2010s, 2014

James K. Morrow photo
Federico García Lorca photo

“Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.”

Federico García Lorca (1898–1936) Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director

Verde que te quiero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar
y el caballo en la montaña.
" Romance Sonámbulo http://www.poesia-inter.net/index203.htm" from Primer Romancero Gitano (1928)

Harlan F. Stone photo

“Akbar abolished Jiziyah in 1564. In all probability many of his 'devout' officers in far off regions, did not care to enforce this anti-Islamic measure. Therefore, ten years later he once again issued orders for its abolition. Badaoni tells us that it was customary "to search out and kill heretics" (Shias), let alone non-Muslims as late as 1574. Hemu's father, when captured, was offered his life if he turned Muslim. Abdun Nabi executed a Brahman for blasphemy on the complaint of a Qazi. Husain Khan, the governor of Lahore (died 983H/ 1575-76) ordered Hindus to stick patches on their shoulders so that no Muslim could be put to the indignity of showing them honour by mistake, nor did he allow Hindus to saddle their horses. Jihad was practised as usual, massacre at Chittor was done in true Jihadist spirit. "The Akbar Nama, the Ain-i-Akbari and Badaoni are all agreed that prior to 1593, some Hindus had been converted to Islam forcibly." In 1581 some Portuguese captives at Surat were offered their lives if they turned Muslim. Even iconoclastic zeal did not disappear under Akbar. Kangra was invaded in 1572-73, and even though Birbal was in joint command, the umbrella of the Goddess was riddled with arrows, 200 cows were killed and Muslim soldiers threw their shoes full of blood at the walls and doors of the temple. A Mughal officer, Bayazid, converted a Hindu temple into a Muslim school. Jain idols in Gujarat could not escape vandalism. "Such seem to have been and continued to be the popular prejudices against the Hindus", under Akbar and his successors as per the obligations of the Shariat and practice of Sunnah, writes S. R. Sharma.”

Source: Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999), ch. 2