Do you give the horse his strength
or clothe his neck with a flowing mane?
Do you make him leap like a locust,
striking terror with his proud snorting?
He paws fiercely, rejoicing in his strength,
and charges into the fray.
He laughs at fear, afraid of nothing:
he does not shy away from the sword.
The quiver rattles against his side,
along with the flashing spear and lance.
In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground;
he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.
At the blast of the trumpet he snorts,
'Aha!' He catches the scent of battle from afar,
the shout of commanders and the battle cry
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth.
-Shakespeare, Henry V
Let us look beyond the ears of our own horses so that we may see
the good in one another's.
-Old equine expression
Horses have hoofs to carry them over frost and snow; hair, to
protect them from wind and cold. They eat grass and drink water,
and fling up their heels.... Such is the real nature of horses.
-Chuang Tzu
...through his mane and tail the high wind sings,
fanning the hairs, who wave like feather'd wings.
-Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
A horse is a thing of such beauty... none will tire of looking at
him as long as he displays himself in his splendor.
-Xenophon
So did this horse excel a common one
In shape, in courage, color, pace and bone.
...What a horse should have he did not lack,
Save a proud rider on so proud a back.
-Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
My horse has a hoof like a striped agate
Hi fetlock is like a fine eagle plume
Hi legs are like lightning
My horse has a tail like a thin black cloud
the Holy Wind blows through his mane...
-Navajo song
There is no secret so close as that between a rider and his horse.
-Old equine expression
A prince is never surrounded by as much majesty on his throne as
he is on a beautiful horse.
-William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle
The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears.
-Arabian proverb
Whether you regard the horse with awe or love, it is impossible to
escape the sheer power of his presence....
-Mary Wanless
Horses carry the history of mankind on their broad backs.
-Lucinda Prior Palmer
And the hoofs of the horses as they run shake the crumbling field....
Publius Virgilius Maro, Roman poet (70-19 B.C.)
I am the Turquoise Woman's Son,
On top of Belted Mountain
beautiful horses--slim like a weasel!
My horse with a hoof like a striped agate,
with his fetlock like a fine eagle plume:
my horse whose legs are like quick lightning
whose body is an eagle-plumed arrow:
my horse whose tail is like a trailing black cloud.
The Little Holy Wind blows through his hair.
My horse with a mane made of short rainbows.
My horse with ears made of round corn.
My horse with eyes made of big starts.
My horse with a head made of mixed waters.
My horse with teeth made of white shell.
The long rainbow is in his mouth for a bridle
and with it I guide him.
-"The War God's Horse Song", Anonymous Navajo poet
Under his spurning feet, the road
Like an arrowly alpine river flowed
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind....
-Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872), American poet
Noblest of the train that wait on man, the flight-performing horse.
-William Cowper (1731-1800), English poet
When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: He trots the air; the
earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more
musical than the pipe of Hermes.
- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright and poet
She was iron-sinew'd and satin-skinn'd.
Ribb'd like a drum and limb'd like a deer,
Fierce as the fire and fleet as the wind--
There was nothing she couldn't climb or clear.
-Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-1870), Australian poet
My Beautiful! My beautiful! that standest meekly by
With thy proudly-arch'd and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye,
Fret not to roam the desert now, with all thy winged speed;
I may not mount on thee again--thou'rt sold, my Arab steed!
- Caroline Norton (1808-1877), Irish writer
The horse has so docile a nature,
That he would always rather do
Right than wrong, if he can only
Be taught to distinguish one from
the other.
- George Melville (1821-1878), Scottish writer
Dawn bounced up in a bright red hat,
waved at the world and skipped away.
Up staggered the foal,
its hooves were jelly-knots of foam.
Then day sniffed with its blue nose
through the open stable window, and found them--
the foal nuzzling its mother,
velvet fumbling for her milk.
-Ferenc Juhasz, B. 1928, Hungarian poet
A fine little smooth horse colt,
Should move a man as much as doth a son.
-Thomas Kyd (1558-1594), English dramatist
[The mare] set off for home with the speed of a swallow, and going
as smoothly and silently. I never had dreamed of such a motion,
fluent and graceful, and ambient, soft as the breeze flitting over
the flowers, but swift as the summer lightning.
-Richard Doddridge Blackmore (1825-1900), English writer
The mare lies down in the grass where the next of the skylark is
hidden. Her eyes drink the delicate horizon moving behind the song.
Deep sink the skies, a well of voices. Her sleep is the vessel of
Summer.
-Vernon Watkens (1906-1967), Welsh poet
Do not spur a free horse.
-Latin proverb
It isn't important who is ahead at one time or another,
in either an election or a horse race.
It's the horse that comes in first at the finish that counts
H. S. Truman, speech Oct. 17, 1948
Politicians are like the bones of a horse's foreshoulder-not a straight one in
it.
Wendell Philips, speech, July 1864
Nothing does as much for the insides of a man than the outsides of a horse.
Ronald Reagan, Remark on Aug 13, 1987, North Platte, Nebr.
A horse is dangerous at both ends and uncomfortable in the middle.
Ian Fleming[1908-1960] quoted in Sunday Times, London Oct. 9, 1966
The horse, the horse!
The symbol of surging potency and power of movement, of action, in man.
D.H. Lawrence [1885-1930] British author, Apocalypse, ch. 10, 1931
They say princes learn no art truly, but the art of horsemanship.
The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer.
He will throw a prince as soon as his groom.
Ben Jonson [1573-1637]
Go anywhere in England where there are
natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people;
and what do you find?
That the stables are the real center of the household.
Gerorge Bernard Shaw 1856-1950, Anglo-Irish Play-write, critic. Lady Utterword, in
Hartbreak House, act 3
My beautiful, my beautiful!
That standest meekly by, With thy proudly-arched and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye!
Caroline Sheridan Norton 1808-1877, English writer, poet.
The Arab's Farewell to His Steed
It takes a good deal of physical courage to ride a horse.
This, however, I have.
I get it at about forty cents a flask, and take it as required.
Stephen Leacock (1869-1944), Canadian humorist, economist. Literary Lapses,
"Reflections on Riding" 1910
Animals do not admire each other.
A horse does not admire its companion.
Blaise Pascal 1623-1662, French scientist, philosopher, Pense'es.
Don't Swap Horses.
Presidential campaign slogan for Lincoln, 1864
I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse.
Groucho Marx, in Horse Feathers, 1932
Four things greater than all things are,
- Women and Horses and Power and War.
Rudyard Kipling, "The Ballad of the King's Jest,"
stanza 5, The Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling:
Departmental Ditties and Barrack-Room Ballads, vol. 25, p. 234, (1941)
For want of a Nail the Shoe was lost;
for want of a Shoe the Horse was lost;
and for want of a Horse the Rider was was lost;
being overtaken and slain by the Enemy,
all for want of Care about the Horse-shoe Nail.
Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac, June 1758, The Complete Poor Richards Almanacs,
facsimile ed., vol.. 2. 375, 377 [1970]
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, rebuke to a young actress reporting that an old actress in the
company was too fond of the young and the handsome leading-man.
variation on above
I don't mind where people make love
so long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses!
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations 3d ed., p. 128 [1970]
and
My dear, I don't care what they do
so long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses!
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 15th ed., p. 706, no. 16 [1982]
Gail Berg's signature block "When man set about mastering the world he lived in, the horse was his friend and partner" -- Han Silvester
Amanda Irish's signature block "The Horse, Thou art a creature without equal- For thou flyest without wings And conquers without sword." --Unknown
"I saw a child who couldn't walk, sit on a horse,
laugh and talk... I saw a child who could only crawl,
mount a horse and sit up tall. I saw a child born into strife,
take up and hold the reins of life. And that same child
was heard to say, Thank God for showing me the way." -- John Anthony Davis
A lot of what's about horses is nuts and bolts...If the rider's nuts, the horse bolts. - -The Horse Whisperer.
A horse is the projection of people's dreams about themselves - strong, powerful, beautiful - and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence -- Pam Brown
In riding a horse, we borrow freedom. -- Pam Brown
I ride, therefore I am. -- Unknown
A horse loves freedom, and the weariest work horse will roll on the ground or break loose into a lumbering gallop when he is turned loose in the open. -- Gerald Raftery
That hoss wasn't built to tread the earth, he took natural to the air, and every time he went aloft, he tried to leave me there. -- Unknown
If you have it, you have it for life. It is a disease for which there is no cure. You will go on riding even after they have to haul you onto a comfortable wise old cob, with feet like inverted buckets and a back like a fireside chair. -- Monica Dickens
The Horse: Here is nobility without conceit, friendship without envy, beauty without vanity, a willing servant, yet no slave. -- Unknown
You can tell a gelding, ask a mare; but you must discuss it with a stallion. -- Unknown
Computers are like horses, press the right button and they'll take you anywhere. -- Unknown
A canter is a cure for every evil. -- Benjamin Disraeli
A daughter who won't lift a finger in the house is the same child who cycles madly off in the pouring rain to spend all morning mucking out stables. -- Samantha Armstrong
There are only two emotions that belong on the saddle;
One is a sense of humor,
and the other is patience. -- John Lyons
The only approbation a rider should covet is that of his horse. -- E. Beudant
Most persons do not ride; they are conveyed. -- M.F. McTaggart
Men on horseback have created most of the world's history. -- Unknown