There is a link between animals and the Deity. Man is merely a more perfect animal than the rest. He reasons better. How do we know that animals have not a language of their own?... My opinion is that it is a presumption in us to say no, because we do not understand them. A horse has memory, knowledge, and love.
~ Napoleon
Where in the wide world can man find
Nobility without pride,
Friendship without envy
Or Beauty without vanity?
Here, where grace is laced with muscle,
And Strength by gentleness confined.
He serves without servility,
He has fought without enmity.
There is nothing so powerful,
Nothing less violent; there is nothing
So quick, nothing more patient.
All of our past has been borne on his back.
All our history is his industry,
We are his heirs, he our inheritance.
Ladies and Gentlemen –
The Horse.
~ Ronald Duncan
Horse, thou art truly a creature without equal, for thou fliest without
any wings and thou conquerest without any sword.
~ The Qur'an
Among all the sights of the docks, the noble truck-horses are not the least striking to a stranger. They are large and powerful brutes, with such sleek and glossy coats, that they look as if brushed and put on by a valet every morning. They march with a slow and stately step, lifting their ponderous hoofs like royal Siam elephants. Thou shalt not lay stripes upon these Roman citizens; for their docility is such, they are guided without rein or lash; they go or come, halt or march on, at a whisper. So grave, dignified, gentlemanly, and courteous did these fine truck-horses look - so full of calm intelligence and sagacity, that often I endeavored to get into conversation with them, as they stood in contemplative attitudes while their loads were preparing. But all I could get from them was the mere recognition of a friendly neigh; though I would stake much upon it that, could I have spoken in their language, I would have derived from them a good deal of valuable information touching the docks, where they passed the whole of their dignified lives. There are unknown worlds of knowledge in brutes; and whenever you mark a horse, or a dog, with a peculiarly mild, calm, deep-seated eye, be sure he is an Aristotle or a Kant, tranquilly speculating upon the mysteries in man. No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses. They see through us at a glance. And after all, what is a horse but a species of four-footed dumb man, in a leathern overall, who happens to live upon oats, and toils for his masters, half-requited or abused, like the biped hewers of wood and drawers of water? But there is a touch of divinity even in brutes, and a special halo about a
horse, that should forever exempt it from indignities. As for those
majestic, magisterial truck-horses of the docks, I would as soon think of
striking a judge on the bench, as to lay violent hands upon their holy
hides.
~ Herman Melville, Redburn, His First Voyage
Gypsy gold does not clink and glitter. It gleams in the sun and neighs in the dark.
~ Saying of the Gladdagh Gypsies of Galway
The sight of that pony did something to me I've never been quite able to explain. He was more than tremendous strength and speed and beauty of motion. He set me dreaming.
~ Walt Morey
...This most noble beast is the most beautiful, the swiftest and of the highest courage of domesticated animals. His long mane and tail adorn and beautify him. He is of a fiery temperament, but good tempered, obedient, docile and well-mannered.
~Pedro Garcia Conde
There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.
~ Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill said that the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man, but I would add that horses like John Henry prove that the inside of a horse is even better for the inside of man.
~ John Nicholson, executive director of the Kentucky Horse Park
[John Henry] loved people. He thought they were delicious.
~V. McIntyre
To be loved by a horse or any animal, should fill us with awe-for we have not deserved it.
~ Marion C Garretty
Don't be the rider who gallops all night and never sees the horse that is beneath him.
~ Jelaluddin Rumi
The one best precept-the golden rule in dealing with a horse-is never to approach him angrily. Anger is so deviod of forethought that it will often drive a man to do things which in a calmer mood he will regret.
~ Xenophon
A horse gallops with its lungs, perseveres with its heart, and wins with its character.
~ Frederico Tesio
The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears.
~ Arabian proverb
I love the horse from hoof to head
From head to hoof and tail to mane
I love the horse as I have said
From head to hoof and back again
~ James Whitcomb Riley
Sell the cow, buy the sheep, but never be without the horse.
~ Irish proverb
Take most people--they're crazy about cars. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for godsake.
~ J. D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye
If a car passes me when I'm on a horse, I always think: if I were in that car and saw me, I would wish I was me. Wistful children's faces, staring out of the back window, agree.
~ Monica Dickens
Even an E-type Jaguar looks merely flash beside a really smart pony and trap.
~ Marion C. Garretty
Machinery may work for efficiency and standardization of life, but horse love is a bond of freemasonry which unites the entire race...
~ William Fawcett
When will they make a tractor that can furnish the manure for farm fields and produce a baby tractor every spring?
~ George Rupp
We have almost forgotten how strange a thing it is that so huge and powerful and intelligent an animal as a horse should allow another, and far more feeble, animal to ride upon its back.
~ Peter Gray
There is just as much horse sense as ever, but the horses have most of it.
~ Anonymous
Whoever said a horse was dumb, was dumb.
~ Will Rogers
If your horse doesn't care, you shouldn't either.
~ Linsy Lee
My dear, I don't care what they do, so long as they don't do it in the
streets and frighten the horses.
~ attributed to Mrs. Patrick Campbell
Show me your horse, and I will tell you who you are.
~ Old English saying
It is not enough for a man to know how to ride; he must know how to
fall.
~ Mexican proverb
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 Johnson
Grooming: the process by which the dirt on the horse is transferred to the groom.
~ Anonymous
There are no handles to a horse, but the 1910 model has a string to each
side of its face for turning its head when there is something you want it to
see.
~ Stephen Leacock, "Reflections on Riding"
Horseback riding is nothing more than the art of keeping a horse between you and the ground.
~ Christina Hansen, Ambigu
A canter is the cure for every evil.
~ Benjamin Disraeli
A man on a horse is spiritually as well as physically bigger than a man
on foot.
~ John Steinbeck
There is something about riding down the street on a prancing horse that makes you feel like something, even when you ain't a thing.
~ Will Rogers
A good rider on a good horse is as much above himself and others as the world can make him.
~ Lord Herbert
If you desire to handle a good war-horse so as to make his action the more magnificent and striking, you must refrain from pulling at his mouth with the bit as well as from spurring and whipping him. [...] but if you teach your horse to go with a light hand on the bit, and yet to hold his head well up and to arch his neck, you will be making him do just what the animal himself glories and delights in. [...] For what the horse does under compulsion, as Simon also observes, is done without understanding; and there is no beauty in it either, any more than if one should whip and spur a dancer.
~ Xenophon, The Art of Horsemanship
For horses can educate through first hand, subjective, personal experiences, unlike human tutors, teachers, and professors can ever do. Horses can build character, not merely urge one to improve on it. Horses forge the mind, the character, the emotions and inner lives of humans. People can talk to one another about all these things and remain distanced and lonesome. In partnership with a horse, one is seldom lacking for thought, emotion and inspiration. One is always attended by a great companion.
~ Charles de Kunffy
Courage, wisdom born of insight and humility, empathy born of compassion and love, all can be bequeathed by a horse to his rider.
~ Charles de Kunffy
Men are better when riding, more just and more understanding, and more alert and more at ease and more under-taking, and better knowing of all countries and all passages; in short and long all good customs and manners cometh thereof, and the health of man and of his soul.
~ Edward Plantagenet
Brooks too wide for our leaping, hedges far to high. Loads too heavy for our moving, burdens too cumbersome for us to bear. Distances far beyond our journeying. The horse gave us mastery.
~ Pam Brown
In riding a horse, we borrow freedom.
~ Helen Thompson
To me, horses and freedom are synonymous.
~ Veryl Goodnight
The emancipation of women may not have begun with the vote, nor in the cities where women marched and carried signs and protested, but rather when they mounted a good cow horse and realized how different and fine the view. From the back of a horse, the world looked wider.
~Joyce Gibson Roach
Look back on our struggle for freedom,
Trace our present day's strength to its source;
And you'll find that man's pathway to glory
Is strewn with the bones of a horse.
~ Anonymous
Without the horse, what would have become of man? It has served us for transport, in agriculture, industry, and every kind of activity from the dawn of time.
~ Bertrand Leclair
For want of a nail a shoe was lost, for want of a shoe a horse was lost, for want of a horse a rider was lost, for want of a rider a army was lost, for want of an army a battle was lost, for want of a battle the war was lost, for want of the war the kingdom was lost, and all for the want of a little horseshoe nail.
~ Benjamin Franklin
Four things greater than all things are women and horses and power and war.
~ Rudyard Kipling
Through the days of love and celebration and joy, and through the dark days of mourning-the faithful horse has been with us always.
~ Elizabeth Cotton
Wherever man has left his footprint in the long ascent from barbarism to civilization we will find the hoofprint of the horse beside it.
~ John Trotwood Moore
Scores, hundreds of horses are wandering around, gathering into herds and into twos and threes, lost, exhausted, bony, but still alive where they have been able to wrench themselves free from a team whose other horses have been killed; some, like our horse are still in harness, or dragging a shaft between them, and there are wounded horses...the undecorated, unnamed heroes of the battle who for a hundred , two hundred miles have hauled this artillery, now dead and drowning in the swamp...
~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn
In grateful and reverent memory of the Empire's horses (some 375,000) who fell in the Great War(1914-1918). Most obediently, and often most painfully, they died.
~ Memorial at Church of St. Jude, London
The horse through all its trials has preserved the sweetness of paradise in its blood.
~ Johannes Jensen
Here's to you, Stocking and Star and Blaze.
You brought me all that the best could bring-
Health and mirth and the merriest days
In the open fields and the woodland ways-
And what can I do in return but sing
A song or two in your praise.
~ Will H. Ogilvie
Every journey has an end –
When at the worst affairs will mend –
Dark the dawn when day is nigh –
Hustle your horse and don't say die!
~ Gilbert & Sullivan, "If You Go In," Iolanthe
God forbid that I should go to any Heaven in which there are no horses.
~ R. B. Cunningham-Graham
