“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.”

Defence of Criminals: A Criticism of Morality (1889)

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Edward Carpenter19

British poet and academic 1844–1929

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“In this allegory the seeker, trying to reach the One, is drawn by two horses, one white and noble and temperate, and the other surly, stubborn, passionate and black. The one is forever aiding him in his upward journey to the portals of heaven, the other is forever confounding him. The Chairman has not stated it yet, but he is at the point at which he must now announce that the white horse is temperate reason, the black horse is dark passion, emotion. He is at the point at which these must be described, but the false note suddenly becomes a chorus.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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“A cavalryman's horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be alowed to know this.”

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“"It was not always so," he said slowly. "When I was a boy—stealing horses was not a crime. It was the way of a brave man, a warrior. Horses then served the purposes of the tribe." He could tell them more, but what he could tell them would perhaps disgust them, confuse them. He had told them enough. Tomacito could have told how Indian tribes rode horses, and when the horses grew old and useless, or when the tribe grew desperate for hunger or for shelter, they drank their horses' blood, stripped their hides for teepees, ate the flesh. Cruel, yes, but necessary. They bought horses, traded for horses, and if they had to—and often they had to—they stole horses. The Spaniards came, and then the white man, and they had horses, and the Indians had none, in the beginning. The white man and the Spaniard, on horses, chased the Indian from his own land. The Indians, on foot, were easy to chase, to hunt down, and kill. With horses, the Indians could stand and fight and die, or run and hide and live a little longer. It was an unfair fight from the start, even with horses, but without horses, it wasn't a fight at all. It was a massacre.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From Running Wild, p. 105
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“Man does not tame and control the horse because he is strong, but because he is smarter than the animal.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“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

“As he poured carefully, Arrow's head turned toward the sound. The horse made a low grumbling noise in his throat.
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John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

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“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.”

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“Once there was an old man who lived in a tiny village. Although poor, he was envied by all, for he owned a beautiful white horse.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

"The Old Man and the White Horse" http://barnabasministry.com/quotes-oldmanwhitehorse.html In the Eye of the Storm (1991) Context: Once there was an old man who lived in a tiny village. Although poor, he was envied by all, for he owned a beautiful white horse. Even the king coveted his treasure. A horse like this had never been seen before — such was its splendor, its majesty, its strength.

“Plato finds it necessary to separate, for example, "horseness" from "horse" and say that horseness is real and fixed and true and unmoving, while the horse is a mere, unimportant, transitory phenomenon. Horseness is pure Idea. The horse that one sees is a collection of changing Appearances, a horse that can flux and move around all it wants to and even die on the spot without disturbing horseness, which is the Immortal Principle and can go on forever in the path of the Gods of old.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 29

“A man that don't love a Horse, there is something the matter with him. If he has no sympathy for the man that does love Horses, then there is something worse the matter with him.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

"A Skinny Dakota Kid Who Made Good"
The Illiterate Digest (1924)

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Edward Carpenter19

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