Cart Before The Horse Quotes

Surprisingly, Stannis smiled at that. “You’re bold enough to be a Stark. Yes, I should have come sooner. If not for my Hand, I might not have come at all. Lord Seaworth is a man of humble birth, but he reminded me of my duty, when all I could think of was my rights. I had the cart before the horse, Davos said. I was trying to win the throne to save the kingdom, when I should have been trying to save the kingdom to win the throne.

For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.

But doesn't every precious era feel like fiction once it's gone? After a while, certain vestigial sayings are all that remain. Decades after the invention of the automobile, for instance, we continue to warn each other not to 'put the cart before the horse'. So, too, we do still have 'day'dreams and 'night'mares, and the early-morning clock hours are still known colloquially (if increasing mysteriously) as 'the crack of dawn'. Similarly, even as they grew apart, my parents never stopped calling each other 'sweetheart'.

Remember that "seeing is believing" puts the cart before the horse. Art is the concrete artifact of faith and expectation, the realization of a world that would otherwise be little more than a veil of pointless consciousness stretched over a gulf of mystery.

here is the great news: You do not have to care about yourself to care for yourself. So many of us have the cart before the horse here: you think you must first like yourself to start being kind to yourself. It actually works the opposite way: caring for yourself is the greatest tool for learning to care about yourself.

Another fallacy comes creeping in whose errors you should be meticulous in trying to avoid. Don't think our eyes, our bright and shining eyes, were made for us to look ahead with. Don't suppose our thigh bones fitted our shin bones and our shins our ankles so that we might take steps. Don't think that arms dangled from shoulders and branched out in hands with fingers at their ends, both right and left, for us to do whatever need required for our survival. All such argument, all such interpretation is perverse, fallacious, puts the cart before the horse. No bodily thing was born for us to use. Nature had no such aim, but what was born creates the use. There could be no such thing as sight before the eyes were formed. No speech before the tongue was made, but tongues began long before speech were uttered. and the ears were fashioned long before a sound was heard. And all the organs I feel sure, were there before their use developed. They could not evolve for the sake of use be so designed. But battling hand to hand and slashing limbs, fouling the foe in blood, these antedate the flight of shining javelins. Nature taught men out to dodge a wound before they learned the fit of shield to arm. Rest certainly is older in the history of man than coverlets or mattresses, and thirst was quenched before the days of cups or goblets. Need has created use as man contrives device for his comfort. but all these cunning inventions are far different from all those things much older, which supply their function from their form. The limbs, the sense, came first, their usage afterwards. Never think they could have been created for the sake of being used.

The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must be stripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation; now, a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper.

Many Christians have put the political cart before the theological horse.

After friendship is formed you must trust, but before that you must judge. Those people who, contrary to Theophrastus’ advice, judge a man after they have made him their friend instead of the other way round, certainly put the cart before the horse.

There seemed to be no horses nor animals of any kind; the men carried things around in little green carts, which they pushed before them. Everyone seemed happy and contented and prosperous.

The night is quiet. Like a camp before battle. The city beset by a thing unknown and will it come from forest or sea? The murengers have walled the pale, the gates are shut, but lo the thing's inside and can you guess his shape? Where he's kept or what's the counter of his face? Is he a weaver, bloody shuttle shot through a time warp, a carder of souls from the world's nap? Or a hunter with hounds or do bone horses draw his dead cart through the streets and does he call his trade to each? Dear friend he is not to be dwelt upon for it is by just such wise that he's invited in

When we look at what we have to offer—our skills, gifts, and desires—before asking what is needed of us, we are putting the cart before the horse, or the gifts before the call. The question a disciple must first ask is not, "What am I good at?" but rather, "What is required of me?

Perhaps it’s not reasonable to ask God to break the rules of physics every time we fall by the wayside or make a serious error. Perhaps, in such times, you can’t put the cart before the horse and simply wish for your problem to be solved in some magical manner. Perhaps you could ask, instead, what you might have to do right now to increase your resolve, buttress your character, and find the strength to go on. Perhaps you could instead ask to see the truth.

There are many writing courses, there’s plenty of demand for them. The shortage is having something to write about, and that can’t be taught in schools. There is no course in finding something to write about. Many beginners lacked something as fundamental as experience of life. It’s a postmodern misconception that you can write first and live later. But many young people want to become writers because they want to live like writers. This is putting the cart before the horse. You must live first, and then decide if you have something to say afterwards. Life itself is a determining factor. Writing is the fruit of life. Life isn’t the fruit of writing.

puts the cart before the horse.

Wherever in life it may be, whether amongst its tough, coarsely poor, and untidily moldering mean ranks, or its monotonously cold and boringly tidy upper classes, a man will at least once meet with a phenomenon which is unlike anything he has happened to see before, which for once at least awakens in him a feeling unlike those he is fated to feel all his life. Wherever, across whatever sorrow sour life is woven of, a resplendent joy will gaily race by, just as a splendid carriage with golden harness, picture-book horses, and a shining brilliance of glass sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly goes speeding by some poor, forsaken hamlet that has never seen anything but a country cart, and for a long time the muzhiks stand gaping open-mouthed, not putting their hats back on, though the wondrous carriage has long since sped away and vanished from sight.

Most people are trying to change the outcomes in their lives, rather than changing themselves as a person. They want to have meaningful, loving and trustworthy relationships, generate more capital, get physically fit or set up a business, without truly putting in the effort to rewire their brains and change their subconscious programming. This is putting the cart before the horse.

Henry Gerber, writing in 1932 under the pseudonym Parisex, responded to an article in The Modern Thinker that condemned homosexuality. "Is not the psychiatrist again putting the cart before the horse in saying that homosexuality is a symptom of the neurotic style of life?" he insisted. "Would it not sound more natural to say that the homosexual is made neurotic because his style of life is beset by thousands of dangers?

He was like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead to.

All unhappiness is caused by our not having mastery over the body... We are all putting the cart before the horse... Take the system of work, for instance. We are trying to do good by ... comforting the poor. We do not get to the cause which created the misery. It is like taking a bucket to empty out the ocean, and more water comes all the time. The Yogi sees that this is nonsense. He says that the way out of misery is to know the cause of misery first...

Following Homo sapiens, domesticated cattle, pigs and sheep are the second, third and fourth most widespread large mammals in the world. From a narrow evolutionary perspective, which measures success by the number of DNA copies, the Agricultural Revolution was a wonderful boon for chickens, cattle, pigs and sheep. Unfortunately, the evolutionary perspective is an incomplete measure of success. It judges everything by the criteria of survival and reproduction, with no regard for individual suffering and happiness. Domesticated chickens and cattle may well be an evolutionary success story, but they are also among the most miserable creatures that ever lived. The domestication of animals was founded on a series of brutal practices that only became crueller with the passing of the centuries. The natural lifespan of wild chickens is about seven to twelve years, and of cattle about twenty to twenty-five years. In the wild, most chickens and cattle died long before that, but they still had a fair chance of living for a respectable number of years. In contrast, the vast majority of domesticated chickens and cattle are slaughtered at the age of between a few weeks and a few months, because this has always been the optimal slaughtering age from an economic perspective. (Why keep feeding a cock for three years if it has already reached its maximum weight after three months?) Egg-laying hens, dairy cows and draught animals are sometimes allowed to live for many years. But the price is subjugation to a way of life completely alien to their urges and desires. It’s reasonable to assume, for example, that bulls prefer to spend their days wandering over open prairies in the company of other bulls and cows rather than pulling carts and ploughshares under the yoke of a whip-wielding ape. In order for humans to turn bulls, horses, donkeys and camels into obedient draught animals, their natural instincts and social ties had to be broken, their aggression and sexuality contained, and their freedom of movement curtailed. Farmers developed techniques such as locking animals inside pens and cages, bridling them in harnesses and leashes, training them with whips and cattle prods, and mutilating them. The process of taming almost always involves the castration of males. This restrains male aggression and enables humans selectively to control the herd’s procreation.

You do not have to care about yourself to care for yourself. So many of us have the cart before the horse here: you think you must first like yourself to start being kind to yourself. It actually works the opposite way: caring for yourself is the greatest tool for learning to care about yourself. So

I am suggesting that we don’t put the “income” cart before the “contentment” horse.

I will pull on my stockings and go quietly past the bedroom doors, and down through the kitchen, out through the garden past the greenhouse into the field. It is still early morning. The mist is on the marshes. The day is stark and stiff as a linen shroud. But it will soften; it will warm. At this hour, this still early hour, I think I am the field, I am the barn, I am the trees; mine are the flocks of birds, and this young hare who leaps, at the last moment when I step almost on him. Mine is the heron that stretches its vast wings lazily; and the cow that creaks as it pushes one foot before another munching; and the wild, swooping swallow; and the faint red in the sky, and the green when the red fades; the silence and the bell; the call of the man fetching cart-horses from the fields - all are mine.

In making practical application of the material covered in this book to everyday solutions, it will be helpful to keep the following underlying themes in mind: Peace of mind is our single goal. Forgiveness is our single function and the way to achieve our goal of peace of mind. Through forgiveness, we can learn not to judge others and to see everyone, including ourselves, as guiltless. We can let go of fear when we stop judging and stop projecting the past into the future, and live only in the now. We can learn to accept direction from our inner intuitive voice, which is our guide to knowing. After our inner voice gives us direction, it will also provide the means for accomplishing whatever is necessary. In following one’s inner guidance, it is frequently necessary to make a commitment to a specific goal even when the means for achieving it are not immediately apparent. This is a reversal of the customary logic of the world, and can be thought of as “putting the cart before the horse.” We do have a choice in determining what we perceive and the feelings we experience. Through retraining of the mind we can learn to use positive active imagination. Positive active imagination enables us to develop positive, loving motion pictures in our minds.

It appears that in our popular thinking about happiness we have managed to get the cart before the horse. “Be good,” we say, “and you will be happy.” “I would be happy,” we say to ourselves, “if I could be successful and healthy.” “Be kind and loving to other people and you will be happy.” It might be nearer the truth if we said, “Be happy—and you will be good, more successful, healthier, feel and act more charitably toward others.

In the first case it emerges that the evidence that might refute a theory can often be unearthed only with the help of an incompatible alternative: the advice (which goes back to Newton and which is still popular today) to use alternatives only when refutations have already discredited the orthodox theory puts the cart before the horse. Also, some of the most important formal properties of a theory are found by contrast, and not by analysis. A scientist who wishes to maximize the empirical content of the views he holds and who wants to understand them as clearly as he possibly can must therefore introduce other views; that is, he must adopt a pluralistic methodology. He must compare ideas with other ideas rather than with 'experience' and he must try to improve rather than discard the views that have failed in the competition. Proceeding in this way he will retain the theories of man and cosmos that are found in Genesis, or in the Pimander, he will elaborate them and use them to measure the success of evolution and other 'modern' views. He may then discover that the theory of evolution is not as good as is generally assumed and that it must be supplemented, or entirely replaced, by an improved version of Genesis. Knowledge so conceived is not a series of self-consistent theories that converges towards an ideal view; it is not a gradual approach to truth. It is rather an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible alternatives, each single theory, each fairy-tale, each myth that is part of the collection forcing the others in greater articulation and all of them contributing, via this process of competition, to the development of our consciousness. Nothing is ever settled, no view can ever be omitted from a comprehensive account. Plutarch or Diogenes Laertius, and not Dirac or von Neumann, are the models for presenting a knowledge of this kind in which the history of a science becomes an inseparable part of the science itself - it is essential for its further development as well as for giving content to the theories it contains at any particular moment. Experts and laymen, professionals and dilettani, truth-freaks and liars - they all are invited to participate in the contest and to make their contribution to the enrichment of our culture. The task of the scientist, however, is no longer 'to search for the truth', or 'to praise god', or 'to synthesize observations', or 'to improve predictions'. These are but side effects of an activity to which his attention is now mainly directed and which is 'to make the weaker case the stronger' as the sophists said, and thereby to sustain the motion of the whole.

I wish to persuade the reader that, whatever the arguments may be, reason lays no embargo upon happiness; nay more, I am persuaded that those who quite sincerely attribute their sorrows to their views about the universe are putting the cart before the horse: the truth is that they are unhappy for some reason of which they are not aware, and this unhappiness leads them to dwell upon the less agreeable characteristics of the world in which they live.

Today we often assume that before undertaking a religious lifestyle, we must prove to our own satisfaction that “God” or the “Absolute” exists. This is good scientific practice: first you establish a principle; only then can you apply it. But the Axial sages would say that this was to put the cart before the horse. First you must commit yourself to the ethical life; then disciplined and habitual benevolence, not metaphysical conviction, would give you intimations of the transcendence you sought.

A classic is a work which gives pleasure to the minority which is intensely and permanently interested in literature. It lives on because the minority, eager to renew the sensation of pleasure, is eternally curious and is therefore engaged in an eternal process of rediscovery. A classic does not survive because of any ethical reason it does not survive because it conforms to certain canons, or because neglect would kill it. It survived because it is a source of pleasure and because the passionate few can no more neglect it then a bee can neglect a flower. The passionate few do not read "the right things" because they are right. That is to put the cart before the horse "the right things" are the right things solely because the passionate few like reading them … Nobody at all is quite in a position to choose with certainty among modern works. To sift the wheat from the chaff is a process that takes an exceedingly long time. Modern works have to pass before the bar of the taste of successive Generations; whereas, with Classics, which have been through the ordeal, almost the reverse is the case. Your taste has to pass before the bar of the classics. That is the point. If you differ with a classic, it is you who are wrong, and not the book. If you differ with a modern work, you may be wrong or you may be right, but no judge is authoritative to decide your taste is unformed. It needs guidance and it needs authoritative guidance. Arnold Bennett, Literary Taste: How to Form It, as quoted by S. I. Hayakawa

God foreknows what will be because He has decreed what shall be. It is therefore a reversing of the order of Scripture, a putting of the cart before the horse, to affirm that God elects because He foreknows people. The truth is, He foreknows because He has elected. This removes the ground or cause of election from outside the creature, and places it in God’s own sovereign will. God purposed in Himself to elect a certain people, not because of anything good in them or from them, either actual or foreseen, but solely out of His own mere pleasure. As

Refreshed, delighted, invigorated, I walked along, forgetting all my cares, feeling as if I had wings to my feet, and could go at least forty miles without fatigue, and experiencing a sense of exhilaration to which I had been an entire stranger since the days of early youth. About half–past six, however, the grooms began to come down to air their masters’ horses—first one, and then another, till there were some dozen horses and five or six riders: but that need not trouble me, for they would not come as far as the low rocks which I was now approaching. When I had reached these, and walked over the moist, slippery sea–weed (at the risk of floundering into one of the numerous pools of clear, salt water that lay between them), to a little mossy promontory with the sea splashing round it, I looked back again to see who next was stirring. Still, there were only the early grooms with their horses, and one gentleman with a little dark speck of a dog running before him, and one water–cart coming out of the town to get water for the baths. In another minute or two, the distant bathing machines would begin to move, and then the elderly gentlemen of regular habits and sober quaker ladies would be coming to take their salutary morning walks. But however interesting such a scene might be, I could not wait to witness it, for the sun and the sea so dazzled my eyes in that direction, that I could but afford one glance; and then I turned again to delight myself with the sight and the sound of the sea, dashing against my promontory—with no prodigious force, for the swell was broken by the tangled sea–weed and the unseen rocks beneath; otherwise I should soon have been deluged with spray. But the tide was coming in; the water was rising; the gulfs and lakes were filling; the straits were widening: it was time to seek some safer footing; so I walked, skipped, and stumbled back to the smooth, wide sands, and resolved to proceed to a certain bold projection in the cliffs, and then return.

If careful attention is paid to the reality, we will see clearly, the real shortage is of the right skills, rather than of jobs. If the right skills are developed, the right start-ups and other enterprises will emerge and provide the jobs needed. It’s always the horse before the cart, not the other way round. At a personal level, it will require the realisation of the need for the acquisition of required skills, the discipline to pursue it and the commitment to push through. These will require a great deal of personal courage and effort. But then, the benefit will be immeasurable.

At the heart of Galatians 2 is not an abstract individualized salvation, but a common meal. Paul does not want the Galatians to wait until they have agreed on all doctrinal arguments before they can sit down and eat together. Not to eat together is already to get the answer wrong. The whole point of his argument is that all those who belong to Christ belong at the same table with one another. The relevance of this today should be obvious. The differences between us, as twentieth-century Christians, all too often reflect cultural, philosophical and tribal divides, rather than anything that should keep us apart from full and glad eucharistic fellowship. I believe the church should recognize, as a matter of biblical and Christian obedience, that it is time to put the horse back before the cart, and that we are far, far more likely to reach doctrinal agreement between our different churches if we do so within the context of that common meal which belongs equally to us all because it is the meal of the Lord whom we all worship. Intercommunion, in other words, is not something we should regard as the prize to be gained at the end of the ecumenical road; it is the very paving of the road itself. If we wonder why we haven't been travelling very fast down the road of late, maybe it's because, without the proper paving, we've got stuck in the mud.

For the most part in the course of our daily lives we abide the abundant evidence that no such universal justices exists. Like a cart horse, we plod along the cobblestones dragging our master's wares with our heads down and our blinders in place, waiting patiently for the next cube of sugar. But there are certain times when chance suddenly provides the justice that Agatha Christie promises. We look around at the characters cat in our own lives - our heiresses and gardeners, our vicars and nannies, our late-arriving guests who are not exactly what they seem - and discover before the end of the weekend all assembled will get their just deserts. But when we do so, we rarely remember to count ourselves among their company.

He was forever wallowing in the mire, dirtying his nose, scrabbling his face, treading down the backs of his shoes, gaping at flies and chasing the butterflies (over whom his father held sway); he would pee in his shoes, shit over his shirt-tails, [wipe his nose on his sleeves,] dribble snot into his soup and go galumphing about. [He would drink out of his slippers, regularly scratch his belly on wicker-work baskets, cut his teeth on his clogs, get his broth all over his hands, drag his cup through his hair, hide under a wet sack, drink with his mouth full, eat girdle-cake but not bread, bite for a laugh and laugh while he bit, spew in his bowl, let off fat farts, piddle against the sun, leap into the river to avoid the rain, strike while the iron was cold, dream day-dreams, act the goody-goody, skin the renard, clack his teeth like a monkey saying its prayers, get back to his muttons, turn the sows into the meadow, beat the dog to teach the lion, put the cart before the horse, scratch himself where he ne’er did itch, worm secrets out from under your nose, let things slip, gobble the best bits first, shoe grasshoppers, tickle himself to make himself laugh, be a glutton in the kitchen, offer sheaves of straw to the gods, sing Magnificat at Mattins and think it right, eat cabbage and squitter puree, recognize flies in milk, pluck legs off flies, scrape paper clean but scruff up parchment, take to this heels, swig straight from the leathern bottle, reckon up his bill without Mine Host, beat about the bush but snare no birds, believe clouds to be saucepans and pigs’ bladders lanterns, get two grists from the same sack, act the goat to get fed some mash, mistake his fist for a mallet, catch cranes at the first go, link by link his armour make, always look a gift horse in the mouth, tell cock-and-bull stories, store a ripe apple between two green ones, shovel the spoil back into the ditch, save the moon from baying wolves, hope to pick up larks if the heavens fell in, make virtue out of necessity, cut his sops according to his loaf, make no difference twixt shaven and shorn, and skin the renard every day.]

A classic is a work which gives pleasure to the minority which is intensely and permanently interested in literature. It lives on because the minority, eager to renew the sensation of pleasure, is eternally curious and is therefore engaged in an eternal process of rediscovery. A classic does not survive for any ethical reason. It does not survive because it conforms to certain canons, or because neglect would not kill it. It survives because it is a source of pleasure, and because the passionate few can no more neglect it than a bee can neglect a flower. The passionate few do not read "the right things" because they are right. That is to put the cart before the horse. "The right things" are the right things solely because the passionate few like reading them. Hence—and I now arrive at my point— the one primary essential to literary taste is a hot interest in literature. If you have that, all the rest will come. It matters nothing that at present you fail to find pleasure in certain classics. The driving impulse of your interest will force you to acquire experience, and experience will teach you the use of the means of pleasure. You do not know the secret ways of yourself: that is all. A continuance of interest must inevitably bring you to the keenest joys.

I came to the conclusion then that “continual mindfulness” could certainly not mean that my little conscious self should be entirely responsible for marshalling and arranging all my thoughts, for it simply did not know enough. It must mean, not a sergeant-major-like drilling of thoughts, but a continual readiness to look and readiness to accept whatever came…. Whenever I did so manage to win its services I began to suspect that thought, which I had always before looked on as a cart-horse, to be driven, whipped and plodding between shafts, might be really a Pegasus, so suddenly did it alight beside me from places I had no knowledge of.

And now, O kind-hearted reader, I feel myself constrained, in the telling of this little story, to depart altogether from the principles of story telling to which you probably have become accustomed and to put the horse of my romance before the cart. There is a mystery respecting Mr and Mrs Peacocke which, according to all laws recognised in such matters, ought not to be elucidated till, let us say, the last chapter but two, so that your interest should be maintained almost to the end, -- so near the end that there should be left only space for those little arrangements which are necessary for the well-being, or perhaps for the evil-being, of our personages. It is my purpose to disclose the mystery at once, and to ask you to look for your interest, -- should you choose to go on with my chronicle, -- simply in the conduct of my persons, during this disclosure, to others. You are to know it all before the Doctor or the Bishop, -- before Mrs. Wortle or the Hon Mrs Stantiloup, or Lady De Lawle. You are to know it all before the Peacockes become aware that it must necessarily be disclosed to any one. It may be that when I shall have once told the mystery there will no longer be any room for interest in the tale to you. That there are many such readers of novels I know. I doubt whether the greater number be not such. I am far from saying that the kind of interest of which I am speaking – and of which I intend to deprive myself, -- is not the most natural and the most efficacious. What would the ‘Black Dwarf’ be if every one knew from the beginning that he was a rich man and a baronet? – or ‘The Pirate,’ if all the truth about Norna of the Fitful-head had been told in the first chapter? Therefore, put the book down if the revelation of some future secret be necessary for your enjoyment. Our mystery is going to be revealed in the next paragraph, -- in the next half-dozen words. Mr and Mrs Peacocke were not man and wife.

For the most part, in the course of our daily lives we abide the abundant evidence that no such universal justice exists. Like a cart horse, we plod along the cobblestones dragging our masters' wares with our heads down and our blinders in place, waiting patiently for the next cube of sugar. But there are certain times when chance suddenly provides the justice that Agatha Christies promise. We look around at the characters cast in our own lives - our heiresses and gardeners, our vicars and nannies, our late-arriving guests who are not exactly what they seem - and discover that before the end of the weekend all assembled will get there just desserts. But when we do so, we rarely remember to count ourselves among their company.

You know,” I said, “you don’t owe New Fiddleham anything. You don’t need to help them.” “Look,” Charlie said as we clipped past Market Street. He was pointing at a man delicately painting enormous letters onto a broad window as we passed. NONNA SANTORO’S, it read, although the RO’S was still just an outline. “That Italian restaurant?” “Yes,” he smiled. “They will be opening their doors for the first time very soon. Sweet family. I bought my first meal in New Fiddleham from that man. A couple of meatballs from a street cart were about all I could afford at the time. He’s an immigrant, too. He’s going to do well. His red sauce is amazing.” “That’s grand for him, then,” I said. “I like it when doors open,” said Charlie. “Doors are opening in New Fiddleham every day. It is a remarkable time to be alive anywhere, really. Do you think our parents could ever have imagined having machines that could wash dishes, machines that could sew, machines that do laundry? Pretty soon we’ll be taking this trolley ride without any horses. I’ve heard that Glanville has electric streetcars already. Who knows what will be possible fifty years from now, or a hundred. Change isn’t always so bad.” “Your optimism is both baffling and inspiring,” I said. “The sun is rising,” he replied with a little chuckle. I glanced at the sky. It was well past noon. “It’s just something my sister and I used to say,” he clarified. “I think you would like Alina. You often remind me of her. She has a way of refusing to let the world keep her down.” He smiled and his gaze drifted away, following the memory. “Alina found a rolled-up canvas once,” he said, “a year or so after our mother passed away. It was an oil painting—a picture of the sun hanging low over a rippling ocean. She was a beautiful painter, our mother. I could tell that it was one of hers, but I had never seen it before. It felt like a message, like she had sent it, just for us to find. “I said that it was a beautiful sunset, and Alina said no, it was a sunrise. We argued about it, actually. I told her that the sun in the picture was setting because it was obviously a view from our camp near Gelendzhik, overlooking the Black Sea. That would mean the painting was looking to the west. “Alina said that it didn’t matter. Even if the sun is setting on Gelendzhik, that only means that it is rising in Bucharest. Or Vienna. Or Paris. The sun is always rising somewhere. From then on, whenever I felt low, whenever I lost hope and the world felt darkest, Alina would remind me: the sun is rising.” “I think I like Alina already. It’s a heartening philosophy. I only worry that it’s wasted on this city.” “A city is just people,” Charlie said. “A hundred years from now, even if the roads and buildings are still here, this will still be a whole new city. New Fiddleham is dying, every day, but it is also being constantly reborn. Every day, there is new hope. Every day, the sun rises. Every day, there are doors opening.” I leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “When we’re through saving the world,” I said, “you can take me out to Nonna Santoro’s. I have it on good authority that the red sauce is amazing.” He blushed pink and a bashful smile spread over his face. “When we’re through saving the world, Miss Rook, I will hold you to that.

Pay attention to when the cart is getting before the horse. Notice when a painful initiation leads to irrational devotion, or when unsatisfying jobs start to seem worthwhile. Remind yourself pledges and promises have power, as do uniforms and parades. Remember in the absence of extrinsic rewards you will seek out or create intrinsic ones. Take into account [that] the higher the price you pay for your decisions the more you value them. See that ambivalence becomes certainty with time. Realize that lukewarm feelings become stronger once you commit to a group, club, or product. Be wary of the roles you play and the acts you put on, because you tend to fulfill the labels you accept. Above all, remember the more harm you cause, the more hate you feel. The more kindness you express, the more you come to love those you help.

While Gen appreciated the fact that one family in town thought him good enough for their daughter—double-bastard and bard-apprentice notwithstanding—the way her parents looked at him, like one would look at a cart horse before buying it, set Gen’s skin to crawling. Remembering the dinner—a rather tasty honey basted ham, sweet bread, and potatoes—prompted a rumble in Gen’s stomach despite his breakfast. Marrying Laraen would not make him happy, but it would make him fat.

Frequently do we meet with the idea that the world is to be converted to Christ by the spread of civilization. Now civilization always follows the Gospel and is, in a great measure, the product of it, but many people put the cart before the horse and make civilization the first cause. According to their opinion, trade is to regenerate the nations! The arts are to ennoble them and education is to purify them. Peace Societies are formed, against which I have not a word to say, but much in their favor. Still, I believe the only efficient Peace Society is the Church of God and the best peace teaching is the love of God in Christ Jesus! The Grace of God is the great instrument for lifting up the world from the depths of its ruin and covering it with happiness and holiness. Christ’s Cross is the Pharos of this tempestuous sea, like the Eddystone lighthouse flinging its beams through the midnight of ignorance over the raging waters of human sin, preserving men from rock and shipwreck, piloting them into the port of peace! Tell it among the heathen—the Lord reigns from the Cross—and as you tell it believe that the power to make the peoples believe it is with God the Father and the power to bow them before Christ is in God the Holy Spirit. Saving energy lies not in learning, nor in wit, nor in eloquence, nor in anything except in the right arm of God who will be exalted among the heathen, for He has sworn that surely all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

At one end of the room was a group of young teens busy with swordplay, and at the other a swarm of children circled round on ancient carved horses mounted on cart wheels or played at stick-and-ball. I wandered toward my friends and was soon hailed by Renna, who offered me a bout. Time passed swiftly and agreeably. I finished my last engagement with one of Nee’s cousins and was just beginning to feel the result of sustained effort in my arm and back when a practice blade thwacked my shoulder. I spun around, and gaped. Shevraeth stood there smiling. At his elbow my brother grinned, and next to him, Savona watched with appreciation apparent in his dark eyes. “Come, Lady Meliara,” the Marquis said. “Let’s see how much you’ve learned since you took on Galdran.” “I didn’t take on Galdran,” I protested, feeling hot and cold at once. “I don’t know what you’d call it, then, Mel.” Bran leaned on his sword, still grinning. “Looked like you went have-at-’im to me.” “I was just trying to defend you,” I said, and the others all laughed. “And a fat lot of good it did, too,” I added when they stopped. “He knocked me right out of the saddle!” “Hit you from behind,” Shevraeth said. “Apparently he was afraid to confront so formidable a foe face-to-face.” They laughed again, but I knew it was not at me so much as at the hated King Galdran. Before I could speak again, Shevraeth raised his point and said, “Come now. Blade up.” I sighed. “I’ve already been made into cheese by Derec, there, and Renna, and Lornav, but if you think I merit another defeat…” Again they laughed, and Savona and my brother squared off as Shevraeth and I saluted. My bout with the Marquis was much like the others. Even more than usual I was hopelessly outclassed, but I stuck grimly to my place, refusing to back up, and took hit after hit, though my parrying was steadily improving. Of course I lost, but at least it wasn’t so easy a loss as I’d had when I first began to attend practice--and he didn’t insult me with obvious handicaps, such as never allowing his point to hit me. Bran and Savona finished a moment later, and Bran was just suggesting we exchange partners when the bells for third-gold rang, causing a general outcry. Some would stay, but most, I realized, were retreating to their various domiciles to bathe and dress for open Court.

Making a fixed promise that is subject to high levels of uncertainty and then requiring people to meet that promise at all costs is like putting the performance cart before the horse. The result is likely to be the distortion of profitability over time and, in exceptional circumstances, outright fraud.

He extended his hands, his brow smoothing and his lips curving into a smile when Abigail placed her hands in his. His hands were warm and comforting, his smile the one she had dreamt of so often. If dreams came true, soon he would say the words she longed to hear: I love you. Ethan’s smile faded slightly as he said, “I know you dislike the West and Army life, but there’s no way around it. I owe the Army another year. Will you wait for me?” Those weren’t the words she had expected. “Wait for what?” Abigail wouldn’t make the mistake of assuming she knew what Ethan meant. Though the look in his eyes, a look that mirrored her own, spoke of love, she needed the words. Why wouldn’t he say them? Ethan rolled his eyes. “There I go again, putting the cart before the horse. It’s your fault, you know. I was never this way before I met you.” He tightened his grip on her hands. “I love you, Abigail. I love your smile, your kind heart, your impulsive nature. I love everything about you.” Ethan paused, and she sensed that the man who had faced death without flinching was afraid of her reaction. “Is it possible that you love me?” Her dream had come true. Her heart overflowing with happiness, Abigail smiled at the man she loved so dearly. She had longed for three special words, and Ethan had given them to her. Not once but three times. And if that weren’t enough, the momentary fear she’d seen had shown her the depth of his love. Ethan loved her. He loved her, and now she could tell him of her own love. “Of course I love you.” Abigail infused her words with every ounce of sincerity she possessed. Ethan must never, ever doubt how much she loved him. “I think I’ve loved you from the first time I saw you, although I didn’t recognize it at the time. I thought God brought me to Wyoming to help Charlotte, but as the weeks passed, it seemed that he had more in store for me. Now I know what it was. He brought me to you.” “And used you to show me what love is.” Ethan rose, tugging Abigail to her feet. “Will you make my life complete? Will you marry me when my time with the Army is ended?” There was only one possible answer. “No.” As Ethan’s eyes widened, Abigail saw disbelief on his face. “You won’t? I don’t understand. If you love me, why won’t you marry me? Don’t you want to?” Again, there was only one answer. “I do want to marry you, Ethan. More than anything else.” His confusion was endearing, and Abigail knew they’d speak of this moment for years to come. “Then why did you refuse me?” “It wasn’t your proposal I refused; it was the timing. Why should we wait a year?” “Because you hate Army life. I don’t want to start our marriage knowing you’re miserable.” “Oh, you silly man.” Abigail smiled to take the sting from her words. “How could I be miserable if I’m with you? The only thing that would make me miserable is being apart. I love you, Ethan. I want to spend the rest of my life as your wife . . . starting now.” Ethan’s smile threatened to split his face. “That’s the Abigail I love: headstrong and impulsive, with a heart that’s bigger than all of Wyoming. I wouldn’t have you any other way.

The entire theater faded away, as did the whispers, titters, and if she wasn’t much mistaken, applause, as Bram continued kissing her before he drew back, cupped her face with his hands, and smiled. It was a wonderful smile, filled with love, hope, and maybe even, a dash of naughtiness and danger. “That’ll keep everyone talking for a while,” he said with a wink. “I’m sure it will, and . . . now that we’ve gotten ourselves engaged, I, my soon-to-be husband, have a scene to finish.” Bram turned his head and whistled, the whistle resulting in Sweet Pea being led onto the stage, pulling her pony cart. “That’s why I brought a horse.” “Sweet Pea is a mule, but even if she was a horse, there’s not a horse in The Lady of the Tower—which you know since you penned the play.” “True, but I brought Sweet Pea along because of the scene in my new novel, the scene where you cut me down, then hoist me over your horse’s back, and then we go galloping off into the night.” “I’m not sure if a heroine will actually have the strength needed to hoist the hero onto a horse, and . . . again, you brought Sweet Pea and a pony cart, so . . . I’m not exactly certain how I should proceed.” “I tried to bring Storm, but Ernie pointed out that if Storm doesn’t like graveyards he probably wouldn’t like the theater, and that’s when Ernie offered to loan me Sweet Pea, and . . . maybe I should just climb in the cart and you can join me.” With that, Bram took hold of her hand, stepped into the pony cart, pulled her in after him, and pulled her onto his lap as he settled against the seat. Picking up the reins, he gave them a flick, and Sweet Pea was off, prancing as she was wont to do across the stage, down the ramp, and straight out the back door that Mr. Skukman was already holding open for them. As they rode away into the night, with Bram’s arms wrapped tightly around her, Lucetta realized that Abigail had been right all along. Bram

Everything happened too fast for Daisy to comprehend. She gripped the ribbons as Hubert jerked forward with a panicked whinny, the cart rattling and bouncing as if it were a child’s toy. Daisy tried in vain to keep her seat, but as the cart hit a deep rut she was thrown clear of the vehicle. Hubert continued racing pell-mell down the lane while Daisy landed on the hard-packed earth with stunning force. The breath was knocked from her, and she choked and wheezed. She had the impression of a massive creature, a monster rushing toward her, but the sound of a gunshot rent the air and caused her ears to ring. A bone-chilling animal squeal… then nothing. Daisy tried to sit up, then flopped weakly on her stomach as her lungs spasmed. Her chest felt as if it had been caught in a vise. There was a good chance she was going to cast up her crumpets, but the thought of how much that would hurt was enough to keep her gorge down. In a moment the thundering of hooves— several sets— vibrated the ground beneath Daisy’s cheek. Finally able to draw a shallow breath, she pushed up on her elbows and lifted her chin. Three riders— no, four— were galloping toward her, hooves thrasing up clouds of dust in the lane. One of the men swung off his horse before it had even stopped and rushed to her in a few ground-eating strides. Daisy blinked in surprise as he dropped to his knees and gathered her up in the same motion. Her head fell back on his arm, and she found herself staring hazily up into Matthew Swift’s dark face. “Daisy.” It was a tone she had never heard from him before, rough and urgent. Cradling her in one arm, he ran his free hand over her body in a rapid search for injuries. “Are you hurt?” Daisy tried to explain that she’d just gotten the wind knocked out of her, and he seemed to understand her incoherent sounds. “All right,” he said. “Don’t try to talk. Breathe slowly.” Feeling her stir against him, he resettled her in his arms. “Rest against me.” His hand passed over her hair, smoothing it back from her face. Tiny shivers of reaction ran through her limbs, and he gathered her closer. “Slowly, sweetheart. Easy. You’re safe now.” Daisy closed her eyes to hide her astonishment. Matthew Swift was murmuring endearments and holding her in hard, strong arms, and her bones seemed to have melted like boiling sugar. Years of uncivilized rough-and-tumble with her siblings had taught Daisy to recover quickly from a fall. In any other circumstances she would have sprung up and dusted herself off by now. But every pleasure-saturated cell in her body sought to preserve the moment for as long as possible.

Below the Tyne River in County Durham, the land slopes from west to east toward the sea, and from south to north into the Tyne Valley. Gravity would move a wagonload of coal down to the water, with a horse led along to haul the unloaded wagon back uphill. Flanges on the wagon wheels held the wagons on track so that they effectively steered themselves. On longer slopes, Galloway reports, a wheeled platform attached to the coal wagon conveyed the horse downhill, “thus making the cart carry the horse”—putting the cart before the horse, that is. Horses adjusted quickly to the arrangement, he noticed, and seemed to enjoy the ride.43

Just as the common saying, ‘do not put the cart before the horse’ says, do not enter a business without good understanding of how it works.

This might be illustrated by the way in which, for example, John Owen’s work Of the Mortification of Sin has undoubtedly been read by many more younger ministers than either his Glory of Christ or Communion with God. That may be understandable because of the deep pastoral insight in Owen’s short work; but it may also put the practical cart before the theological horse. Owen himself would not have been satisfied with hearers who learned mortification without learning Christ. A larger paradigmatic shift needs to take place than only exchanging a superficial subjectivism for Owen’s rigorous subjectivism. What is required is a radical recentering in a richer and deeper knowledge of Christ, understood in terms of his person and work. There can be little doubt that Owen himself viewed things this way.

I do want to talk to you about something, though,” he says. He’s quiet and serious and he stops rubbing my leg. He wraps his hand around my ankle. “Okay,” I say hesitantly. “With all the chemo, the chances of my ever having kids are slim.” His eyes are full of pain. “There’s probably no chance at all.” He jerks a thumb toward the hallway. “Would you be satisfied with three kids and no more?” I lay my head back and laugh. “You think I need more than three?” “I just want to be completely honest with you. I can’t get you pregnant. So if you wanted to have a baby, I’m not the guy for you, and I don’t want to get my hopes up.” I gesture to his lap. “Everything…works? Right?” Heat creeps up my cheeks. He lifts my foot and presses it closer to his zipper. “Everything works,” he says quietly. He’s fully hard against the side of my foot, and I feel like my face is aflame with embarrassment, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “I have a question for you now,” I say. I don’t even know how to phrase it, but I have to ask. “My kids,” I say. “They’re not blond-haired and blue-eyed. Would that be a problem for you?” We’re totally putting the cart before the horse here, and I feel stupid even asking these questions of a man I just met, but I like him. I like him a lot. “Your kids are perfect,” he says. “I would be honored to spend time with them.” “But, like…” I drop my face in my hands. I can’t get what Phillip said to me out of my head. “But…would you be okay being with them in public and having people think they’re yours? And mine?” I gesture back and forth between us. “Not that I’m trying to give you my kids or anything, but we’re sort of a package deal.” “I like the package,” he says. “And I’d be honored for anyone in the world to think those kids were mine, if we ever got to that point in our relationship.” “This is a relationship?” I ask. I’m grinning like a fool, though. “Not yet,” he says. “Right now, I’m just a crazy guy you just met, who divested you of your stockings and wants to touch your feet.” He looks down at my toes and tickles them. He looks me in the eye. “So, now you want to fall in love with me?” he asks. “You did hit me in the face, so I’m obligated to marry you at some point.

Ask away,” Furi said, realizing they were almost to his exit. “Are you in trouble?” Furi turned; looking sharply at Syn. Furi probably wasn’t expecting that to be his first question, but that was the most important issue as far as Syn was concerned. He knew Furi wasn't involved in Starman’s murder, so he didn’t need to ask about that. “Before I left the pub tonight, you asked me if someone had sent me and if I was working for him. Were you talking about your husband?” “Yes,” Furi said roughly. “He hasn’t seen or heard from me in almost a year. He might’ve thought I was dead.” He shrugged. “I finally had him served with divorce papers, which means he now knows my address. He and his brother will come for me, guaranteed. Even if it’s only to serve up one more ass whipping before he signs the papers.” Syn heard the squeaking sound his steering wheel was making as he tightened his fists and squeezed the leather. He was getting angry, angrier than he’d been in a long time. The thought of someone harming the man beside him; touching even one lock of gorgeous hair on his head made Syn want to shoot something. He took a deep breath and tried to follow the directions Furi was giving him. He pulled up to a small house on the corner in a quiet neighborhood. “This is your house?” Syn asked. “Um. No, I rent the small basement apartment. It’s clean and safe,” Furi said quietly. Syn discreetly looked around the street. He didn’t want to scare Furi, but Syn was at defcon 3 now that he knew some bastard might want to hurt his man. My man. Putting the cart before the horse again. He didn’t want to push Furi, didn’t want to make him feel inferior or weak, but the urge to protect was there, and it was powerful. Furi was strong, he’d experienced the man’s force a couple times, but everyone needed help sometimes. Syn was just the man to help. That’s what he was good at, damn good at.

But in fact the traditional creed knows nothing of what love really is. For love is simply the strongest thing in the universe, the most awful, the most inexorable, while the most tender. Further, when love is thus seen in its true colors, there is less than ever an excuse for the mistake still so common, which virtually places at the center of our moral system sin and not grace. This it is which the traditional dualism has for centuries been doing, and is still doing. Doubtless retribution is a most vital truth. Universalists rejoice to admit it; nay, largely to base on it their system; but there is a greater truth -which controls, and dominates the whole, the truth of Love. We must not, in common phrase, put the theological cart before the horse. Retribution must not come first, while love brings up the rear; nor must we put the idea of probation, before that of God's education of His human family. In a word, to arrive at truth is hopeless, so long as men virtually believe in a quasi-trinity -God and the Devil, and the Will of Man.

Let me make this point again. 1 Corinthians predates the gospels, and 1 Corinthians 15 is the longest extended treatment of the resurrection before the four gospels. So really, on the timeline, the gospels were written later. So here we’ve got the chronological horse of Paul’s epistles in the right place, before the gospel cart.

The problem with a convenience store (a small store with a small inventory and few fixtures) is that it is hard to invest enough money to let the people be productive enough to justify high wages and benefits. I had put the cart—the high wages—before the horse—the convenience market. Perhaps, as the young lady from Stanford commented in 1986, I had done the right thing for the wrong reason. Much of my career was spent trying to find ways to pay the high wages to which I was totally committed. First we upped the investment ante by taking only prime locations, which could generate the most sales, even though the rents were higher.

She cares about you quite deeply. As much as I’ve ever seen a powerful woman care for a powerful man. You should consider yourself very lucky.” I smiled. “I do, but don’t put the cart before the horse. We aren’t…” I searched for the right way to say it. “We’re just very good friends.” She arched a brow at me. “Then you, Nate Temple, are an idiot.

For the past three decades, the climate policy “cart” has been way out in front of the scientific ‘horse’. The 1992 Climate Change treaty was signed by 190 countries before the balance of scientific evidence suggested even a discernible observed human influence on global climate.

The vibrating sounds of a big brass bell reached them from the town. Nekhludoff’s driver, who stood by his side, and the other men on the raft raised their caps and crossed themselves, all except a short, dishevelled old man, who stood close to the railway and whom Nekhludoff had not noticed before. He did not cross himself, but raised his head and looked at Nekhludoff. This old man wore a patched coat, cloth trousers and worn and patched shoes. He had a small wallet on his back, and a high fur cap with the fur much rubbed on his head. “Why don’t you pray, old chap?” asked Nekhludoff’s driver as he replaced and straightened his cap. “Are you unbaptized?” “Who’s one to pray to?” asked the old man quickly, in a determinately aggressive tone. “To whom? To God, of course,” said the driver sarcastically. “And you just show me where he is, that god.” There was something so serious and firm in the expression of the old man, that the driver felt that he had to do with a strong-minded man, and was a bit abashed. And trying not to show this, not to be silenced, and not to be put to shame before the crowd that was observing them, he answered quickly. “Where? In heaven, of course.” “And have you been up there?” “Whether I’ve been or not, every one knows that you must pray to God.” “No one has ever seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him,” said the old man in the same rapid manner, and with a severe frown on his brow. “It’s clear you are not a Christian, but a hole worshipper. You pray to a hole,” said the driver, shoving the handle of his whip into his girdle, pulling straight the harness on one of the horses. Some one laughed. “What is your faith, Dad?” asked a middle-aged man, who stood by his cart on the same side of the raft. “I have no kind of faith, because I believe no one--no one but myself,” said the old man as quickly and decidedly as before. “How can you believe yourself?” Nekhludoff asked, entering into a conversation with him. “You might make a mistake.” “Never in your life,” the old man said decidedly, with a toss of his head. “Then why are there different faiths?” Nekhludoff asked. “It’s just because men believe others and do not believe themselves that there are different faiths. I also believed others, and lost myself as in a swamp,--lost myself so that I had no hope of finding my way out. Old believers and new believers and Judaisers and Khlysty and Popovitzy, and Bespopovitzy and Avstriaks and Molokans and Skoptzy--every faith praises itself only, and so they all creep about like blind puppies. There are many faiths, but the spirit is one--in me and in you and in him. So that if every one believes himself all will be united. Every one be himself, and all will be as one.” The old man spoke loudly and often looked round, evidently wishing that as many as possible should hear him. “And have you long held this faith?” “I? A long time. This is the twenty-third year that they persecute me.” “Persecute you? How?” “As they persecuted Christ, so they persecute me. They seize me, and take me before the courts and before the priests, the Scribes and the Pharisees. Once they put me into a madhouse; but they can do nothing because I am free. They say, ‘What is your name?’ thinking I shall name myself. But I do not give myself a name. I have given up everything: I have no name, no place, no country, nor anything. I am just myself. ‘What is your name?’ ‘Man.’ ‘How old are you?’ I say, ‘I do not count my years and cannot count them, because I always was, I always shall be.’ ‘Who are your parents?’ ‘I have no parents except God and Mother Earth. God is my father.’ ‘And the Tsar? Do you recognise the Tsar?’ they say. I say, ‘Why not? He is his own Tsar, and I am my own Tsar.’ ‘Where’s the good of talking to him,’ they say, and I say, ‘I do not ask you to talk to me.’ And so they begin tormenting me.

There are those who find it soothing to say that the analytic statements of the second class reduce to those of the first class, the logical truths, by definition; 'bachelor,' for example, is defined as 'unmarried man.' But how do we find that 'bachelor' is defined as 'unmarried man'? Who defined it thus, and when? Are we to appeal to the nearest dictionary, and accept the lexicographer's formulation as law? Clearly this would be to put the cart before the horse. The lexicographer is an empirical scientist, whose business is the recording of antecedent facts; and if he glosses 'bachelor' as 'unmarried man' it is because of his belief that there is a relation of synonymy between these forms, implicit in general or preferred usage prior to his own work. The notion of synonymy presupposed here has still to be clarified, presumably in terms relating to linguistic behavior. Certainly the 'definition' which is the lexicographer's report of an observed synonymy cannot be taken as the ground of the synonymy.

Jesus quite clearly believed in change. In fact, the first public word out of his mouth was the Greek imperative verb metanoeite, which literally translates as “change your mind” or “go beyond your mind” (Matthew 3:2, 4:17, and Mark 1:15). Unfortunately, in the fourth century, St. Jerome translated the word into Latin as paenitentia (“repent” or “do penance”), initiating a host of moralistic connotations that have colored Christians’ understanding of the Gospels ever since. The word metanoeite, however, is describing a primal change of mind, worldview, or your way of processing—and only by corollary about a specific change in behavior. The common misunderstanding puts the cart before the horse; we think we can change a few externals while our underlying worldview often remains fully narcissistic and self-referential.

Undeniably, economic factors can and often do exacerbate antisemitism, and often create crises in which antisemites may flourish. After all, such factors impinge on virtually all aspects of society, and when an economic crisis occurs, the resultant social upheaval may unleash many of the worst aspects of a society, among them Jew-hatred. But economic factors do not cause Jew-hatred; they only provide opportunities for it to be expressed. For one thing, there is little if any correlation between Jews’ wealth and antisemitism. Jews have often suffered the worst antisemitism when they were poor, as was true of the overwhelming majority of Jews in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Poland and Russia, and have encountered the least amount of antisemitism when affluent, as in the United States and Canada today. As regards attributing medieval antisemitism to the Jews’ role as moneylenders, this puts the cart before the horse. Because of Christian European antisemitism during the Middle Ages, Jews were often denied the right to practice professions other than moneylending. Jews were not hated because they lent money; they lent money because they were hated. Obviously, once Jews became moneylenders, Jew-hatred was exacerbated.

Johnson affirmed that during the period of his membership in the Communist Party there was never any deviation from the basic antireligious line. There was, however, a change in what he called “the tactical application of the Communist Party’s antireligious policy.” This tactical change was made in 1932 at a meeting he attended of the national committee of the Communist Party in New York, “at which time Earl Browder made a speech to the committee in which he said that our aim should be to draw the religious element into the movement before we convinced them to become atheists. In other words, to reverse the old policy of convincing the worker and farmer to become an atheist before he became active in the Communist Party movement. As Browder put it, that old policy was like putting the cart before the horse.

As Gernsback became wealthy, he cultivated the air of a bon vivant, packaging himself as adroitly as he packaged his crystal sets by dressing in bespoke suits and silk ties. But he inevitably struck people as odd, rude, self-centered, and even callous. On train trips to Chicago to pick up parts for his company, he would stop off in Cleveland to visit his seven-year-old cousin, Hildegarde. The entrepreneur would terrify the girl by launching into windy soliloquies about a society in which domed cities in orbit, robot doctors, and retirement colonies on Mars were commonplace. (Meanwhile, horse-drawn carts were still plying the streets outside.) If a ringing telephone interrupted him in midreverie, he would raise an admonishing finger and say to his cousin in his bristling Germanic accent, “Hildegarde, fix your hair. It won’t be long before the caller can see your face over the wires.

Alas, Mama’s protest fell on deaf ears, the bears of Bear Country gave in to their fears. Mama’s advice Notwithstanding, they put the cart of fear before the horse of understanding. “To arms!” cried Papa. “There’s no time to fuss. We’ve got to get him before he gets us.” Swords were unsheathed. Bugles were blown. They were no longer bears with minds of their own. They were no longer Jack and Jill, Betty and Bob. The bears had become a dangerous mob. With the false courage of numbers to the mountain they went, with an arsenal of weapons and deadly intent.

... self-esteem does not cause high grades-instead, high grades cause higher self-esteem. So self-esteem programs clearly put the cart before the horse in trying to increase self-esteem. ...Self-esteem is an outcome, not a cause. It doesn't do much good to encourage a child to feel good about himself just to feel good; this doesn't mean anything. Children develop true self-esteem from behaving well and accomplishing things.

A leaf grows by enlarging the string of cells located along a central vein; single cells on the perimeter eventually decide independently when to stop dividing. From this tip, smaller veins develop, eventually completing the network at the stem; thus the overall maturation proceeds from tip to base. Once the most daring portion of the leaf is complete, the plant puts horse before cart and begins to slide sugar back down and in, down to where it will be used to make more root, which will be used to bring up more water, which will be used to expand new leaves, which will pull back more sugar, and in this manner four hundred million years have passed.

To say that religion came from reverencing a chief or sacrificing at a harvest is to put a highly elaborate cart before a really primitive horse.

Kathleen.” He made no attempt to hide the lust in his gaze. “If you hold still, I’ll help you with your skirt. But if you run from me, you’re going to be caught.” He took an unsteady breath before adding softly, “And I’ll make you come for me again.” Her eyes turned huge. He took a deliberate step forward. She bolted across the nearest threshold and fled to the carriage room. Devon was at her heels instantly, following her past the workshop with its long carpenter’s benches and tool cupboards. The carriage room smelled pleasantly of sawdust, axle grease, lacquer varnish, and leather polish. It was quiet and shadowy, illuminated only by a row of skylights over massive hinge-strapped doors that could be opened onto the estate’s carriage drive. Kathleen darted through rows of vehicles used for different purposes; carts, wagons, a light brougham, a landau with a folding top, a phaeton, a hooded barouche for summer. Devon circled around and intercepted her beside the family coach, a huge, stately carriage that could only be pulled by six horses. It had been designed as a symbol of power and prestige, with the Ravenel family crest--a trio of black ravens on a white and gold shield--painted on the sides. Halting abruptly, Kathleen stared at him through the semidarkness. Taking the overskirt from her, Devon dropped it to the floor, and pinned her against the side of the carriage. “My riding skirt,” she exclaimed in dismay. “You’ll ruin it.” Devon laughed. “You were never going to wear it anyway.” He began to unbutton her riding jacket, while she sputtered helplessly.

Before the coming of the railroad in 1845 the trip to Boston by cart, carriage, or horse took about two and a half hours. There

Deveraux asked, “Do you remember how irate Doctor Wycliffe became whenever a student stated a proposition and then picked a bible passage that would support it?” “Oh yes, quoting a text out of its intellectus is the worst kind of cart-before-horse and is exactly what accurate translations are meant to curtail, for you cannot stoop to such lazy and selfish beliefs if you understand the bible’s broad themes and their supporting passages. If you do put your ideas before God’s, you are not only practicing idolatry by following a false god but you are stealing the true God’s bible.

The artist shouldn’t be able exactly to say what he or she is doing. If you can say what you’re doing, you’re not producing art. Art is … well, you can say, art bears the same relation to culture that the dream does to mental stability. Your dream doesn’t say what it’s about, it just is. You can interpret it, and that’s helpful sometimes, just like movie criticism is helpful, but the dream is something that extends you beyond where you already are. That’s why it isn’t verbal thought, it’s something else. It’s like a pseudopod that’s going out into the unknown. That’s what art is. And the artist who subsumes the artistic vision to the ideological framework is putting the cart before the horse. It’s actually a sin, I would say, it’s the ultimate of creative sins to do that, because you’re harnessing the greater to the lesser. It’s like, yeah, you understand things, and you tell a story about what you understand. No, no, you tell a story about what you don’t understand. And then you pull everyone into the story. The story’s an exploration in that way.

The English version of this term, putting the cart before the horse, suggests haste – and there is indeed a kind of premature quality to this play that is so shaped by youthful impatience and hurry, with its adolescent protagonists rushing towards their destiny, heedless of Friar Lawrence’s caution: ‘Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow’ (2.5.15). Lots of elements of this play are about coming too soon, and the sexual pun is somehow unavoidable: Romeo and Juliet is shaped as the structural equivalent of premature ejaculation. If, as many theorists have conjectured, the pleasure we take in narrative is somehow paced like sexual pleasure – enjoying anticipation, foreplay and climax – then this play needs to learn to take its time.