Quotes from book

Black Beauty

“I hope you will grow up gentle and good, and never learn bad ways; do your work with a good will, lift your feet up well when you trot, and never bite or kick even in play.”

“My doctrine is this, that if we see
cruelty or wrong that we have the
power to stop, and do nothing, we
make ourselves sharers in the guilt.”

“We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.”

“If you in the morning
Throw minutes away,
You can't pick them up
In the course of a day.
You may hurry and scurry,
And flurry and worry,
You've lost them forever,
Forever and aye.”

“Oh! if people knew what a comfort to a horse a light hand is…”

“What right had they to make me suffer like that?”

“if we could act a little more according to common sense, and a good deal less according to fashion, we should find many things work easier;”

“If they strain me up tight, why, let 'em look out! I can't bear it, and I won't.”

“If a thing is right it can be done, and if it is wrong it can be done without; and a good man will find a way.”

“It is good people who make good places.”

“My troubles are all over, and I am at home; and often before I am quite awake, I fancy I am still in the orchard at Birtwick, standing with my friends under the apple trees.”

“Why don't they cut their own children's ears into points to make them look sharp? Why don't they cut off their noses to make them look plucky? One would be just as sensible as the other. What right have they to torment and disfigure God's creatures?”

“We shall all have to be judged according to our works, whether they be towards man or towards beast.”

“There is no religion without love,
and people may talk as much as
they like about their religion, but
if it does not teach them to be good
and kind to man and beast,
it is all a sham.”

“A bad-tempered man will never make a good-tempered horse.”

“Do you know why this world is as bad as it is? […] it is because people think only about their own business, and won't trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, nor bring the wrong-doer to light.”

“I am never afraid of what I know.”

“God had given men reason, by which they could find out things for themselves, but He had given animals knowledge which did not depend on reason, and which was much more prompt and perfect in its way, and by which they had often saved the lives of men.”