Equine Expressions

We have listed on this page some equine-related quotes and expressions. Most of them have authors credits, but some are "unknown". If you recognize one as being by a certain person, please let us know! We will credit them right away. These make great "fillers" for those odd spaces in a web page, and they are also wonderful as additions to your e-mail signature. Enjoy!

"For the dominant quality of Arab blood is its eternal, its immortal persistence... It has triumphed over everything mundane - thousands of years, hap and circumstances, time and tide, incredible hardships and immemorial adversities, misuse, and abuse, the exigencies of mankind's daily life and the flame and blood of the battlefield - unconquerable, indestructible and victorious." -- John L. Hervey, from a speech made on March 27, 1942 in Chicago
"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

"No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle." -- Winston Churchill

"...through his mane and tail the high wind sings, fanning the hairs, who wave like feather'd wings." -- Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

"If you have seen nothing but the beauty of their markings and limbs, their true beauty is hidden from you." -- Al Mutannabi, 9th century A.D.

"Riding: The art of keeping a horse between you and the ground." -- The London Times

"Let us look beyond the ears of our own horses so that we may see the good in one another's." -- 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

"Nature, when she made the Arab, made no mistake." -- Homer Davenport

"A horse is the projection of peoples' dreams about themselves - strong, powerful, beautiful and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence." -- Tre Tuberville

"The horse shall be for man a source of happiness and wealth; its back shall be a seat of honor and its belly riches, and every grain of barley given it... shall be entered in the register of good works." -- Mohammed

"Riding is a partnership. The horse lends you his strength, speed and grace, which are greater than yours. For your part you give him your guidance, intelligence and understanding, which are greater than his. Together you can achieve a richness that alone neither can." -- Lucy Rees

"Hast thou given the horse strength? Hast thou clothed his neck in thunder? He paweth in the valley and rejoiceth in his might. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage." -- Book of Job

"...But why discourse upon the virtues of the horse? They are too numerous to tell, save when you have a horse to sell." -- Josh Billings

"By reason of his elegance, he resembles an image painted in a palace, though he is as majestic as the palace itself." -- Emir Abd-el-Kader

"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

"God forbid that I should go to any Heaven in which there are no horses." -- Robert B. Cunningham-Graham in a letter to T. Roosevelt, 1917.

"To be loved by a horse, or by any animal, should fill us with awe for we have not deserved it." -- Marion Garretty

"When God created the horse, he spoke to the magnificent creature: I have made thee without equal. All the treasures of this earth lie between thine eyes... thou shalt fly without wings." -- The Koran

"To err is human, to whinney equine." -- Cheryl Farner

"When you are on a great horse, you have the best seat you will ever have." -- Winston Churchill

"A horse which stops dead just before a jump and thus propels its rider into a graceful arc provides a splendid excuse for general merriment." -- Duke of Edinburgh

"There is nothing better than the outside of a horse for the inside of a man." -- Old Equine Expression

"A good rider on a good horse is as much above himself and others as the world can make him." -- Lord Herbert

"Man does not rightly know the way to the heavenly world, but the horse does rightly know it." -- Satapatha Brahmana XIII

"No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses." -- Herman Melville

"And as I was riding along, my heart resounded in the lawn-dampened steps, resounded in the snorting and champing on the bit by my grey, and a blissful happiness lit up my heart and I knew: If I now dropped out of the world, I would fall into heaven." -- Baron Von Munchhausen

"His neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage." -- King Henry V

"A good horse is never a bad color." -- Old Equine Expression

"I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse’s good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein

"And God took a handful of southerly wind, blew His breath over it, and created the horse." -- Bedouin Legend

"The horse is a creature who sacrifices his own being to exist through the will of another...he is the noble conquest of man." -- Buffon

"Riding turns 'I wish' into 'I can'." -- P. Brown

"A Horseman should know neither fear, nor anger." -- James Rarey

"You can tell a gelding and ask a mare, but you must discuss it with a stallion." -- Unknown

"Sell the cow, buy the sheep, but never be without the horse." -- Irish proverb

"There is no secret so close as that between a rider and his horse". -- R.S. Surtees

"I heard a neigh, Oh, such a brisk and melodious neigh it was. My very heart leaped with the sound." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne

"If the world was truly a rational place, men would ride sidesaddle." -- Rita Mae Brown

"In riding a horse, we borrow freedom." -- Helen Thomson

"If riding were all blue ribbons and bright lights, I would have quit long ago." -- George Morris

"The Horse. Here is nobility without conceit, friendship without envy, beauty without vanity. A willing servant, yet no slave." -- Ronald Duncan

"A pony is a childhood dream. A horse is an adulthood treasure." -- Rebecca Caroll

"Where in this wide world can one find nobility without pride, friendship without envy, or beauty without vanity? Here, where grace is laced with muscle and strength by gentleness confined." -- Ronald Duncan

"If you start getting nervous about getting hurt you will be... If you are worrying about the danger it's time to give up." -- Jason Weaver (jockey)

"The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears." -- Arabian proverb

"As a horse runs, think of it as a game of tag with the wind." -- Tre Tuberville

"The essential joy of being with horses is that it brings us in contact with the rare elements of grace, beauty, spirit and fire." -- Sharon Ralls Lemon

"No one can teach riding as well as a horse." -- C.S. Lewis

"I can always tell which is the front end of a horse, but beyond that, my art is not above the ordinary." -- Mark Twain

"Ask me to show you poetry in motion, and I will show you a horse." -- Author Unknown

"Don't be the rider who gallops all night and never sees the horse that is beneath him." --Jelaluddin Rumi

"I pray that gentle hands may guide my feet. I ask for kind commands from voices sweet. At night a stable warm with scented hay, where safe from every harm, I'll sleep 'til day." -- A Pony's Prayer

"He has galloped through young girl's dreams, added richness to grown women's lives and served men in war and strife." -- Toni Robinson

"For one to fly, you need only to take the reins." -- Melissa James

"When you're young and you fall off a horse, you may break something. When you're my age and you fall off, you splatter." -- Roy Rogers

"My treasures do not chink together and glitter. They gleam in the sun and neigh in the night." -- Arabian Proverb

"It is not enough for a man to know how to ride; he must know how to fall." -- Mexican Proverb

"I wish your horses swift and sure of foot; And so I do commend you to their backs. Farewell." -- Shakespeare, Macbeth

"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." -- King Henry V


"Shoe the horse, shoe the mare, but let the little colt go bare." -- Nursery Rhyme

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