“
We never know the quality of someone else's life, though we seldom resist the temptation to assume and pass judgement.
”
”
Tami Hoag (Dark Horse (Elena Estes, #1))
“
You can't become a decent horseman until you fall off and get up again, a good number of times.
There's life in a nutshell.
”
”
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
“
Do not dare not to dare.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Horse and His Boy (Chronicles of Narnia, #5))
“
If I am to be fallen into love, I will. And if as a result I will appear to be stupid, disillusioned, and of poor judgment, I will. And I would be damned if I cared what other people think. For I would rather be thought of as all of these things, than not love. If in loving, I become the naked woman on the horse, I will ride that horse with my head held high. This is my spirit. I am unbreakable.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
When things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on getting worse for some time; but when things once start going right they often go on getting better and better.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Horse and His Boy (Chronicles of Narnia, #5))
“
Onward and Upward! To Narnia and the North!
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Horse and His Boy (Chronicles of Narnia, #5))
“
Any problem can be solved between people if only they can trust each other
”
”
Michael Morpurgo (War Horse (War Horse, #1))
“
Let the dark horses of passion emerge from the night of our secret dreams, and give voice to the appeals of our authentic being, and fly on the wings of our inspiration. ( "Just for a moment" )
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
Everything - a horse, a vine - is created for some duty... For what task, then, were you yourself created?
”
”
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
“
I believe that half the trouble in the world comes from people asking 'What have I achieved?' rather than 'What have I enjoyed?' I've been writing about a subject I love as long as I can remember--horses and the people associated with them, anyplace, anywhere, anytime. I couldn't be happier knowing that young people are reading my books. But even more important to me is that I've enjoyed so much the writing of them.
”
”
Walter Farley (The Black Stallion (The Black Stallion, #1))
“
cause when there's life there's still hope
”
”
Michael Morpurgo (War Horse (War Horse, #1))
“
I think that if you have a horse, pegasus, qilin, or unicorn, you should sit on it! You should stroke its hair, whisper in its ear, be one with it! And you shouldn't feel sorry if other people don't have one.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
Henry Ford summed it up best. “If I had asked people what they wanted,” he said, “they would have said a faster horse.
”
”
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
“
When someone's wounded, the first order of business is to stop the bleeding. You can figure out later how best to help them heal.
”
”
Jeannette Walls (Half Broke Horses)
“
Emotions were like wild horses and it required wisdom to be able to control them
”
”
Paulo Coelho
“
I have seen flowers come in stony places
And kind things done by men with ugly faces,
And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,
So I trust, too.
”
”
John Masefield
“
Agatha, what do you see when you look in the mirror?"
"I don't look in mirrors."
"Why is that?"
"Because horses and hogs don't sit around ogling their reflections!
”
”
Soman Chainani (The School for Good and Evil (The School for Good and Evil, #1))
“
Her only shame was that she felt none.
”
”
Nicholas Evans (The Horse Whisperer)
“
Nothing can be sadder or more profound than to see a thousand things for the first and last time. To journey is to be born and die each minute...All the elements of life are in constant flight from us, with darkness and clarity intermingled, the vision and the eclipse; we look and hasten, reaching out our hands to clutch; every happening is a bend in the road...and suddenly we have grown old. We have a sense of shock and gathering darkness; ahead is a black doorway; the life that bore us is a flagging horse, and a veiled stranger is waiting in the shadows to unharness us.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
In fairy tales the evil characters disappear or die, in reality, evil spreads while you wait for your hero on a horse, only to realise the sword to save yourself was always in your hand...
”
”
Seja Majeed (The Forgotten Tale of Larsa)
“
The revolution has no leader, I said. It was more like a raging wild horse that would buck anyone who tried to mount it against its will.
”
”
Wael Ghonim (Revolution 2.0: The Power of the People Is Greater Than the People in Power: A Memoir)
“
He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.
”
”
William Shakespeare (King Lear)
“
A large, white, winged horse stands before me, wings outspread and nostrils dilated, she writes. He tells me that he is here to carry me into the moonlit realms of imagination, dreams, and intuition. He uses his hooves to strike at the ground of my being, to trigger wellsprings of poetic inspiration and artistic creativity fed by memories of times long since past, memories that often creep into the dream time. Furthermore, he says the deep unconscious – in the form of a magician’s spell – is calling to me to remember who I have been and who I am destined to be.
”
”
Kathy Martone (Victorian Songlight: The Birthings of Magic & Mystery)
“
In plain words, you’ve got to make up your mind to study whatever you undertake, and concentrate your mind on it, and really work at it. This isn’t wisdom. Any damned fool in the world knows it’s true, whether it’s a question of raising horses or writing plays. You simply have to face the prospect of starting at the bottom and spending years learning how to do it.
”
”
Eugene O'Neill
“
Born for the blue skies,
We'll survive the rain.
Born for the sunrise,
We'll survive the pain.
”
”
Switchfoot
“
If a book is not alive in the writer's mind, it is as dead as year-old horse-shit
”
”
Stephen King
“
Quick work doesn't mean less serious work, it depends on one's self-confidence and experience. In the same way Jules Guérard, the lion hunter, says in his book that in the beginning young lions have a lot of trouble killing a horse or an ox, but that the old lions kill with a single blow of the paw or a well-placed bite, and that they are amazingly sure at the job... I must warn you that everyone will think that I work too fast. Don't you believe a word of it. Is it not emotion, the sincerity of one's feeling for nature, that draws us, and if the emotions are sometimes so strong that one works without knowing one works, when sometimes the strokes come with a continuity and coherence like words in a speech or a letter, then one must remember that it has not always been so, and that in time to come there will again be hard days, empty of inspiration. So one must strike while the iron is hot, and put the forged bars on one side.
”
”
Vincent van Gogh
“
By the time I was sixteen I had read many books and I had become a freethinker.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy, #1))
“
They rode out along the fenceline and across the open pastureland. The leather creaked in the morning cold. They pushed the horses into a lope. The lights fell away behind them. They rode out on the high prairie where they slowed the horses to a walk and the stars swarmed around them out of the blackness. They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy, #1))
“
I'm born with wild horses in my head..
With an imagination to conquer this world..
I will not settle for the comforts of a golden cage.
”
”
Jasz Gill
“
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide on man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Henry V)
“
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'.
”
”
Karen Thompson Walker (The Age of Miracles)
“
The flowers that I left in the ground,
that I did not gather for you,
today I bring them all back,
to let them grow forever,
not in poems or marble,
but where they fell and rotted.
And the ships in their great stalls,
huge and transitory as heroes,
ships I could not captain,
today I bring them back
to let them sail forever,
not in model or ballad,
but where they were wrecked and scuttled.
And the child on whose shoulders I stand,
whose longing I purged
with public, kingly discipline,
today I bring him back
to languish forever,
not in confession or biography,
but where he flourished,
growing sly and hairy.
It is not malice that draws me away,
draws me to renunciation, betrayal:
it is weariness, I go for weariness of thee,
Gold, ivory, flesh, love, God, blood, moon-
I have become the expert of the catalogue.
My body once so familiar with glory,
My body has become a museum:
this part remembered because of someone's mouth,
this because of a hand,
this of wetness, this of heat.
Who owns anything he has not made?
With your beauty I am as uninvolved
as with horses' manes and waterfalls.
This is my last catalogue.
I breathe the breathless
I love you, I love you -
and let you move forever.
”
”
Leonard Cohen (Selected Poems, 1956-1968)
“
It is a well-known established fact throughout the many-dimensional worlds of the multiverse that most really great discoveries are owed to one brief moment of inspiration. There's a lot of spadework first, of course, but what clinches the whole thing is the sight of, say, a falling apple or a boiling kettle or the water slipping over the edge of the bath. Something goes click inside the observer's head and then everything falls into place. The shape of DNA, it is popularly said, owes its discovery to the chance sight of a spiral staircase when the scientist‘s mind was just at the right receptive temperature. Had he used the elevator, the whole science of genetics might have been a good deal different.
This is thought of as somehow wonderful. It isn't. It is tragic. Little particles of inspiration sleet through the universe all the time traveling through the densest matter in the same way that a neutrino passes through a candyfloss haystack, and most of them miss.
Even worse, most of the ones that hit the exact cerebral target, hit the wrong one.
For example, the weird dream about a lead doughnut on a mile-high gantry, which in the right mind would have been the catalyst for the invention of repressed-gravitational electricity generation (a cheap and inexhaustible and totally non-polluting form of power which the world in question had been seeking for centuries, and for the lack of which it was plunged into a terrible and pointless war) was in fact had by a small and bewildered duck.
By another stroke of bad luck, the sight of a herd of wild horses galloping through a field of wild hyacinths would have led a struggling composer to write the famous Flying God Suite, bringing succor and balm to the souls of millions, had he not been at home in bed with shingles. The inspiration thereby fell to a nearby frog, who was not in much of a position to make a startling contributing to the field of tone poetry.
Many civilizations have recognized this shocking waste and tried various methods to prevent it, most of them involving enjoyable but illegal attempts to tune the mind into the right wavelength by the use of exotic herbage or yeast products. It never works properly.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Sourcery (Discworld, #5; Rincewind, #3))
“
Mr. Kendrick was born on a horse and he'll die on one, and maybe that's not something you can breed for. He's one of those rare men who can make a horse work for him but never asks for more than they have." WOW. Very unexpected.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Scorpio Races)
“
Good poetry, like music or a sweet touch, can doctor us up, be an antidote for an hour or longer, help us to get dressed for another day--combat the blues enough to mount the horse again; and maybe even aid in laying down the insidious weight of some old grudge or deep-rooted anxiety. Herein enters Rumi.
”
”
Daniel Ladinsky (The Purity of Desire: 100 Poems Inspired by Rumi)
“
When I told my teachers I wanted to be a writer, alot of them encouraged me to lower my expectations and to be more realistic. So I rode away on my magical, winged horse, spraying faerie dust behind me, and laughing manically as I went.
”
”
M.E. Vaughan
“
Never mistake movement for action... a rocking horse moves; a race horse charges towards a goal.
”
”
Johnnie Dent Jr.
“
Whether or not you get what you're looknig for depends entirely on one things and one thing only. It depends on your willingness to do something different.
”
”
Wyatt Webb (It's Not About the Horse: It's About Overcoming Fear and Self-Doubt)
“
I shall have my lasso, I shall lead the course;
I recognize it’s time to mount a different horse.
”
”
Mie Hansson (Where Pain Thrives)
“
Gwynned lies two days westwards; still further south, the weregeld calls. Mayhap with All-Father Woden's favour, my deeds may yet inspire the skalds.
”
”
Lord Byron
“
It's not man versus machine; it's man with machine versus man without. Data and intuition are like horse and rider, and you don't try to outrun a horse; you ride it.
”
”
Pedro Domingos
“
Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side.
”
”
Atticus Aristotle (Success and Happiness - Quotes to Motivate Inspire & Live by)
“
Having ideas is not the same thing as being creative. Creation is execution, not inspiration. Many people have ideas; few take the steps to make the thing they imagine.
”
”
Kevin Ashton (How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery)
“
Each time you love—be it a man or a child, a cat or a horse—you add color to this world. When you fail to love, you erase color.” She smiles. “Love, in any of its forms, is what takes this journey from a bleak black-and-white pencil sketch to a magnificent oil painting.”
She touches my cheek. “It’s the sweet fruit that paints the field and wakes our senses. I’m not saying you must be on a constant quest for it, but please, if love comes to you, if you find it within your grasp, promise me you’ll pluck it from the vine and give it a good looking-over, won’t you?
”
”
Lori Nelson Spielman (The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany)
“
It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.
”
”
Margery Williams Bianco (The Velveteen Rabbit & Other Stories)
“
When you hear hoofbeats in Central Park, think horses, not zebras.
”
”
J. C. Peters
“
In the race of life, don’t be like a horse or car that can stop anytime; rather be like Earth and Time: unstoppable.
”
”
Vinita Kinra
“
The mind is compared to a wild horse,and the practice of ethics is compared to the reins by which this wild horse is tamed.
”
”
Dalai Lama XIV
“
Never point a gun unless you're ready to end a life. -Horse
”
”
Joanna Wylde (Reaper's Property (Reapers MC, #1))
“
Many of us have this view of ourselves being "captains of our ships", and just like the old adage, "the captain goes down with his ship"; we sit on our adamant moral high horses and would rather go down with our ships than let go of something to give it, and ourselves, a chance at something better. But I'm a mermaid. We don't go down with ships. We don't try to conquer the ocean; we swim and flow with the waves. We sink the ships that need to be sunk and we save the people that need to be saved.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
I mean to do something grand. I don't know what, yet; but when I'm grown up I shall find out.Perhaps,it will be rowing out in boats, and saving peoples' lives,like that girl in the book. Or perhaps I shall go and nurse in the hospital, like Miss Nightingale. Or else I'll head a crusade and ride on a white horse, with armor and a helmet on my head, and carry a sacred flag. Or if I don't do that, I'll paint pictures,or sing, or scalp – sculp – what is it? you know – make figures in marble. Anyhow it shall be something.
”
”
Susan Coolidge (What Katy Did)
“
When gangs took over the [abandoned public land in Philadelphia] and the neighborhood took a turn for the worse, horses became a way of saving lives. By getting boys interested in raising a horse rather than killing another human being, these cowboys gave the youth something positive: father figures, focus, and the ability to stand tall.
”
”
G. Neri (Ghetto Cowboy (the inspiration for Concrete Cowboy))
“
Isn’t it funny how we make rational excuses for being out of alignment?
We say, “Well, this ____ and that ____ happened, so it makes perfect sense for me to be feeling like this ____ and wanting to do this ____.”
Yet, to this day, I have never met a happy person who adheres to those excuses. In fact, each time I – or anyone else – decide to give in to “rational excuses” that justify feeling bad – it’s interesting that only further suffering is the result.
There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Sure, we can go there and make choices that dim our lights… and that is fine; there certainly is purpose for it and the contrast gives us lessons to learn… yet if we’re aware of what we are doing and we’re ready to let go of the suffering – then why go there at all? It’s like beating a dead horse. Been there, done that… so why do we keep repeating it?
Pain is going to happen; it’s inevitable in this human experience, yet it is often so brief. When we make those excuses, what happens is: we pick up that pain and begin to carry it with us into the next day… and the next day… into next week… maybe next month… and some of us even carry it for years or to our graves!
Forgive, let it go! It is NOT worth it! It is NEVER worth it. There is never a good enough reason for us to pick up that pain and carry it with us. There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Unforgiveness hurts you; it hurts others, so why even go there? Why even promote pain? Why say painful things to yourself or others? Why think pain? Just let it go!
Whenever I look back on painful things or feel pain today, I know it is my EGO that drives me to “go there.” The EGO likes to have the last word, it likes to feel superior, it likes to make others feel less than in hopes that it will make itself (me) feel better about my insecurities. Maybe if I hurt them enough, they will feel the pain I felt over what they did to me. It’s only fair! It’s never my fault; it’s always someone else’s. There is a twisted sense of pleasure I get from feeling this way, and my EGO eats it right up. YET! With awareness that continues to grow and expand each day, I choose to not feed my pain (EGO) or even go there. I still feel it at times, of course, so I simply acknowledge it and then release it.
I HAVE power and choice over my speech and actions. I do not need to ever “go there” again. It’s my choice; it’s your choice. So it’s about damn time we start realizing this. We are not victims of our impulses or emotions; we have the power to control them, and so it’s time to stop acting like we don’t. It’s time to relinquish the excuses.
”
”
Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
“
I am the interpretation of the prophet
I am the artist in the coffin
I am the brave flag stained with blood
I am the wounds overcome
I am the dream refusing to sleep
I am the bare-breasted voice of liberty
I am the comic the insult and the laugh
I am the right the middle and the left
I am the poached eggs in the sky
I am the Parisian streets at night
I am the dance that swings till dawn
I am the grass on the greener lawn
I am the respectful neighbour and the graceful man
I am the encouraging smile and the helping hand
I am the straight back and the lifted chin
I am the tender heart and the will to win
I am the rainbow in rain
I am the human who won’t die in vain
I am Athena of Greek mythology
I am the religion that praises equality
I am the woman of stealth and affection
I am the man of value and compassion
I am the wild horse ploughing through
I am the shoulder to lean onto
I am the Muslim the Jew and the Christian
I am the Dane the French and the Palestinian
I am the straight the square and the round
I am the white the black and the brown
I am the free speech and the free press
I am the freedom to express
I will die for my right to be all the above here mentioned
And should threat encounter I’ll pull my pencil
”
”
Mie Hansson (Where Pain Thrives)
“
I need this wild life, this freedom. To be alive, to look into nature, and so into my soul.
”
”
Zane Grey
“
Draw a cart with horses, or push it down a hill...Both move the cart, aye?” -- Daerwin of Brannagh
”
”
Jordan MacLean (Sword of Hemlock (Lords of Syon Saga: Book One))
“
When the dust settles, the horses will be gone
”
”
Yasmine Hamdi (Spirit of the Wind)
“
Often we can't find the power of life even when we're born with it; like a horseman can't find his horse when he is riding on it.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
God created the earth but the Devil evolved it.
”
”
Piers Anthony (On a Pale Horse (Incarnations of Immortality #1))
“
I want to change the world," said Tiny Dragon. "Start with the next person who needs your help," replied Big Panda.
”
”
James Norbury (Big Panda and Tiny Dragon / The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse)
“
When you hear clip-clop-clip outside your window in most cases the sound will be made by a horse, but once in a while (rarely), a zebra will be responsible for the sound.
”
”
Nicholas Dodman
“
I may not be able to make a horse drink, but it is my duty to lead it to water.
”
”
Conrad Taylor
“
Silence is the only offering that one could offer to the god and silence is his ultimate celebration.
”
”
Soman Gouda (Spoor of an Indian Horse)
“
Men are born for adventures and women are born adventurous
”
”
Soman Gouda (Spoor of an Indian Horse)
“
Beauty is in the flower not at its roots
”
”
Soman Gouda (Spoor of an Indian Horse)
“
Life is neither misery nor bliss. Life is an empty canvas, paint your life with color of your choice, start with a day. Let horses of your imagination run wild.
”
”
Jasz Gill
“
Something flickered in her belly. Not attraction, surely. She despised arrogant military types. but the man before her didn't look arrogant at the moment. Or even all that militaristic. He simply looked like a man who loved his horse.
”
”
Karen Witemeyer (At Love's Command (Hanger's Horsemen, #1))
“
As I prepare to leave she walks with me, half deaf and blind, under several ladders in her living room that balance paint and workmen, into the garden where there is a wild horse, a 1930 car splayed flat on its axles and hundreds of flowering bushes so that her eyes swim out into the dark green and unfocussed purple. There is very little now that separates the house from the garden. Rain and vines and chickens move into the building. Before I leave, she points to a group photograph of a fancy dress party that shows herself and my grandmother Lalla among the crowd. She has looked at it for years and has in this way memorized everyone's place in the picture. She reels off names and laughs at the facial expressions she can no longer see. It has moved, tangible, palpable, into her brain, the way memory invades the present in those who are old, the way gardens invade houses here, the way her tiny body steps into mine as intimate as anything I have witnessed and I have to force myself to be gentle with this frailty in the midst of my embrace.
”
”
Michael Ondaatje (Running in the Family)
“
In the temples, churches and mosques gods born and die, but in the libraries they grow and evolve
”
”
Soman Gouda (Spoor of an Indian Horse)
“
Men get brave only by brave actions
”
”
Soman Gouda (Spoor of an Indian Horse)
“
Express your heart amidst the nature, the god’s ultimate expression. That’s what I believed in
”
”
Soman Gouda (Spoor of an Indian Horse)
“
Those glittery eyes of him looked up like the candles but never flickered. In one, he held the life and in the other, the death
”
”
Soman Gouda (Spoor of an Indian Horse)
“
Humanity is divided by the dietary traditions but is united by the hunger
”
”
Soman Gouda (Spoor of an Indian Horse)
“
The faith in the light, the vigor to plunge out from the mud and the sustained nobility to remain unstained by the past is what makes it a lotus
”
”
Soman Gouda (Spoor of an Indian Horse)
“
In the secret most corner of my mind, I conspire to live like a lotus, as a lotus, buoyant, in full bloom, untainted
”
”
Soman Gouda (Spoor of an Indian Horse)
“
A horse in a stall is safe, but that is not what horses are made for.
”
”
Tobey Pearl (Terror to the Wicked: America's First Trial by Jury That Ended a War and Helped to Form a Nation)
“
Never give up, even when the obstacles seem sky-high. There is something extraordinary in all of us.
”
”
Elizabeth Letts (The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, The Horse That Inspired a Nation)
“
He rode death's horse by the tips of his fingers and the tips of his toes.
”
”
Isaac Hooke (The Forever Gate (The Forever Gate #1))
“
To shrink back from all that can be called Nature into negative spirituality is as if we ran away from horses instead of learning to ride. There is in our present pilgrim condition plenty of room (more room than most of us like) for abstinence and renunciation and mortifying our natural desires. But behind all asceticism the thought should be, ‘Who will trust us with the true wealth if we cannot be trusted even with the wealth that perishes?’ Who will trust me with a spiritual body if I cannot control even an earthly body? These small and perishable bodies we now have were given to us as ponies are given to schoolboys. We must learn to manage: not that we may some day be free of horses altogether but that some day we may ride bare-back, confident and rejoicing, those greater mounts, those winged, shining and world- shaking horses which perhaps even now expect us with impatience, pawing and snorting in the King’s stables. Not that the gallop would be of any value unless it were a gallop with the King; but how else— since He has retained His own charger—should we accompany Him?
”
”
C.S. Lewis
“
An artist must regulate his life.
Here is a time-table of my daily acts. I rise at 7.18; am inspired from 10.23 to 11.47. I lunch at 12.11 and leave the table at 12.14. A healthy ride on horse-back round my domain follows from 1.19 pm to 2.53 pm. Another bout of inspiration from 3.12 to 4.7 pm. From 5 to 6.47 pm various occupations (fencing, reflection, immobility, visits, contemplation, dexterity, natation, etc.)
Dinner is served at 7.16 and finished at 7.20 pm. From 8.9 to 9.59 pm symphonic readings (out loud). I go to bed regularly at 10.37 pm. Once a week (on Tuesdays) I awake with a start at 3.14 am.
My only nourishment consists of food that is white: eggs, sugar, shredded bones, the fat of dead animals, veal, salt, coco-nuts, chicken cooked in white water, mouldy fruit, rice, turnips, sausages in camphor, pastry, cheese (white varieties), cotton salad, and certain kinds of fish (without their skin). I boil my wine and drink it cold mixed with the juice of the Fuschia. I have a good appetite but never talk when eating for fear of strangling myself.
I breathe carefully (a little at a time) and dance very rarely. When walking I hold my ribs and look steadily behind me.
My expression is very serious; when I laugh it is unintentional, and I always apologise very politely.
I sleep with only one eye closed, very profoundly. My bed is round with a hole in it for my head to go through. Every hour a servant takes my temperature and gives me another.
”
”
Erik Satie
“
The taxi driver felt that it was a good observation, and said he was planning to build for the future, too: he had some money on the horses, and if he won, he would buy his own taxicab, and really do well.
I felt very sorry. I told him that betting on the horses was a bad idea, but he insisted it was the only way he could do it. He had such good intentions, but his method was going to be luck.
I wasn't going to go on philosophizing, so he took me to a place where there was a steel band playing some great calypso music, and I had an enjoyable afternoon.
”
”
Richard P. Feynman
“
One who knows and knows that he knows…
His horse of wisdom will reach the skies.
One who knows, but doesn’t know that he knows…
He is fast asleep, so you should wake him up!
One who doesn’t know, but knows that he doesn’t know…
His limping mule will eventually get him home.
One who doesn’t know and doesn’t know that he doesn’t know…
He will be eternally lost in his hopeless oblivion!
”
”
Ibn Yamin (Translated by Niayesh Afshordi)
“
I agree. To me, it [galloping on horseback] is the essence of freedom—the power of the beast beneath you, the wind in your face, the thundering of the hooves. It is a great elixir for the soul.”
“And does your soul need healing, Benjamin?” she asked quietly, gently running her fingertips across his bicep and down his forearm.
He turned away from the view of the pond and looked at her with clear, blue eyes, his expression serious. He captured her fingers in the palm of his hand. “My healing started the day I met you. You are my elixir.”
“Then perhaps you need another dose,” she whispered, her face upturned as she leaned closer to him.
”
”
Suzannah Daniels
“
The Loneliness of the Military Historian
Confess: it's my profession
that alarms you.
This is why few people ask me to dinner,
though Lord knows I don't go out of my way to be scary.
I wear dresses of sensible cut
and unalarming shades of beige,
I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser's:
no prophetess mane of mine,
complete with snakes, will frighten the youngsters.
If I roll my eyes and mutter,
if I clutch at my heart and scream in horror
like a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene,
I do it in private and nobody sees
but the bathroom mirror.
In general I might agree with you:
women should not contemplate war,
should not weigh tactics impartially,
or evade the word enemy,
or view both sides and denounce nothing.
Women should march for peace,
or hand out white feathers to arouse bravery,
spit themselves on bayonets
to protect their babies,
whose skulls will be split anyway,
or,having been raped repeatedly,
hang themselves with their own hair.
There are the functions that inspire general comfort.
That, and the knitting of socks for the troops
and a sort of moral cheerleading.
Also: mourning the dead.
Sons,lovers and so forth.
All the killed children.
Instead of this, I tell
what I hope will pass as truth.
A blunt thing, not lovely.
The truth is seldom welcome,
especially at dinner,
though I am good at what I do.
My trade is courage and atrocities.
I look at them and do not condemn.
I write things down the way they happened,
as near as can be remembered.
I don't ask why, because it is mostly the same.
Wars happen because the ones who start them
think they can win.
In my dreams there is glamour.
The Vikings leave their fields
each year for a few months of killing and plunder,
much as the boys go hunting.
In real life they were farmers.
The come back loaded with splendour.
The Arabs ride against Crusaders
with scimitars that could sever
silk in the air.
A swift cut to the horse's neck
and a hunk of armour crashes down
like a tower. Fire against metal.
A poet might say: romance against banality.
When awake, I know better.
Despite the propaganda, there are no monsters,
or none that could be finally buried.
Finish one off, and circumstances
and the radio create another.
Believe me: whole armies have prayed fervently
to God all night and meant it,
and been slaughtered anyway.
Brutality wins frequently,
and large outcomes have turned on the invention
of a mechanical device, viz. radar.
True, valour sometimes counts for something,
as at Thermopylae. Sometimes being right -
though ultimate virtue, by agreed tradition,
is decided by the winner.
Sometimes men throw themselves on grenades
and burst like paper bags of guts
to save their comrades.
I can admire that.
But rats and cholera have won many wars.
Those, and potatoes,
or the absence of them.
It's no use pinning all those medals
across the chests of the dead.
Impressive, but I know too much.
Grand exploits merely depress me.
In the interests of research
I have walked on many battlefields
that once were liquid with pulped
men's bodies and spangled with exploded
shells and splayed bone.
All of them have been green again
by the time I got there.
Each has inspired a few good quotes in its day.
Sad marble angels brood like hens
over the grassy nests where nothing hatches.
(The angels could just as well be described as vulgar
or pitiless, depending on camera angle.)
The word glory figures a lot on gateways.
Of course I pick a flower or two
from each, and press it in the hotel Bible
for a souvenir.
I'm just as human as you.
But it's no use asking me for a final statement.
As I say, I deal in tactics.
Also statistics:
for every year of peace there have been four hundred
years of war.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Morning in the Burned House: Poems)
“
First, there is a large body of empirical evidence on the predictive accuracy of speculative markets, on everything from horse-racing to elections to invasions. “Put your money where your mouth is” turns out to be a great way to get the well informed to reveal what they know, and the poorly informed to quiet down. No system is perfect, but betting markets outperform other methods of prediction in a wide variety of circumstances. The PAM was inspired not by ivory tower theorizing, but by the proven success of betting markets in other areas.
”
”
Bryan Caplan (The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies)
“
Time often is forgiving and dismissive of the influences, because they recede. We look at Sgt. Pepper and we go "wow! How did they ever think that up?" but of course, if you got into Paul McCartney's bedroom, found his record collection at the time, you would find out. But the clues are gone. It's like evolution: there are certain pure situations that hang around longer, but the ones that got them there don't have time to leave fossils. We have a giraffe, we have a horse. But where's the horse with the long neck? The link species disappear.
”
”
Michka Assayas (Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas)
“
(I)t was Lady who saved my mother's life. Lady, who made it possible for her not only to walk away from my father, but also to keep going. Horses were my mother's religion. It was them she wanted to be with all those Sundays as a child, when she'd been made to put on dresses to go to mass.
”
”
Cheryl Strayed (Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail)
“
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.
”
”
Emi Iyalla
“
For all of their size and strength, horses are surprisingly fragile creatures. Bearing tremendous weight on their slender legs, they are subject to all manner of lameness—bone spavins, pricked feet, broken knees, corns. Some have faults of conformation that put unnecessary strain on their legs. Some have been ill used—jumped too much or ridden too hard.
”
”
Elizabeth Letts (The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, The Horse That Inspired a Nation)
“
G took her hand in his and traced his finger over the delicate skin of her arm. What she didn't realize was that he was scrawling the words of a poem he had recently written. It was inspired by his lady and he had spent many long hours trying to find the words that adequately conveyed the feelings of his heart.
There were many false starts, because at first he tried to capture the moment a horse fell in love with a ferret.
Shall I compare thee to a barrel to apples?
Thou art more hairy, but sweeter inside.
Rough winds couldn't keep me from taking you to chapel,
When finally a horse would take a bride...
And then he tried to wax poetic about the ferret alone ...
Shall I compare thee to a really large rat?
Thou art more longer, with less disease.
One would never mistake you for a listless cat ...
Nor a filthy dog, because my dog has fleas.
He could never confess his passion for poetry with those poetry examples.
”
”
Cynthia Hand (My Lady Jane (The Lady Janies, #1))
“
Wander with me through one mood of the myriad moods of sadness into which one is plunged by John Barleycorn. I ride out over my beautiful ranch. Between my legs is a beautiful horse. The air is wine. The grapes on a score of rolling hills are red with autumn flame. Across Sonoma Mountain wisps of sea fog are stealing. The afternoon sun smoulders in the drowsy sky. I have everything to make me glad I am alive. I am filled with dreams and mysteries. I am all sun and air and sparkle. I am vitalised, organic. I move, I have the power of movement, I command movement of the live thing I bestride. I am possessed with the pomps of being, and know proud passions and inspirations. I have ten thousand august connotations. I am a king in the kingdom of sense, and trample the face of the uncomplaining dust.... And yet, with jaundiced eye I gaze upon all the beauty and wonder about me, and with jaundiced brain consider the pitiful figure I cut in this world that endured so long without me and that will again endure without me. I remember the men who broke their hearts and their backs over this stubborn soil that now belongs to me. As if anything imperishable could belong to the perishable! These men passed. I, too, shall pass. These men toiled, and cleared, and planted, gazed with aching eyes, while they rested their labour-stiffened bodies on these same sunrises and sunsets, at the autumn glory of the grape, and at the fog-wisps stealing across the mountain. And they are gone. And I know that I, too, shall some day, and soon, be gone.
”
”
Jack London (John Barleycorn)
“
Sonnet of Education
Competition is for horses,
Education is for the human.
Either education or competition,
You can have only one.
Education ought to build character,
Not to raise snobs hooked on cash.
Love is needed, kindness is needed,
It won't come by raising tribal trash.
Cash-building education is uneducation,
For it only sustains self-absorption.
Character-building education is ascension,
For it paves the way for true civilization.
One can be educated yet a filthy savage.
True sign of education lies in selflessness.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Mücadele Muhabbet: Gospel of An Unarmed Soldier)
“
Every successful artist starts before they’re ready. They show up to the studio even when they feel uninspired. They send that marketing email even when they don’t feel motivated. The inspiration comes from creating the art. The motivation comes from doing the work. The confidence comes from riding the wild horse of fear even when your brain tells you it’s a bad idea. The reason you don’t feel ready is because readiness isn’t a feeling. You’re feeling scared, unmotivated, or uninspired, but the story your brain tells you is that you’re “just not ready yet.
”
”
Miriam Schulman (Artpreneur: The Step-by-Step Guide to Making a Sustainable Living From Your Creativity)
“
Great Master Liao Ran once told me that if my heart was as large as the world, worries the size of a mountain would be no more than a drop in the ocean. If I traverse the mountains, rivers, and oceans, see the great profusion of living things, and look often at other people, I will be able to look down and see myself. One who has never treated the dying with their own hands will see their own superficial scrapes as mortal wounds; one who has never eaten a mouthful of yellow sand will see only the brilliant gleam of spears and armored horses when they think of battle; and one who has never gnawed on empty husks complains of an imagined illness when they discuss the suffering of the common people.
”
”
Priest (Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang, Vol. 2)
“
Ali explained that Uncle Arash had been tasked with the strangest job in the Persian army. At night, after the human wave attacks and the mustard gas left countless dozens or hundreds of Iranians dying on the battlefield, it was Arash’s job to quietly and secretly put on a long black cloak, get atop a horse, and ride around the battlefield of fallen men with a flashlight under his face. He was meant to look like an angel. He was meant to inspire the dying men to die with dignity, conviction. To keep them from suicide. The delirious dying men would see Arash on his mount, in his illuminated hood, and believe they were being visited by Gabriel himself, or the twelfth imam returning for them. “Your uncle was an angel,” Ali told his son. “Literally. He helped a lot of people.
”
”
Kaveh Akbar (Martyr!)
“
I found a sense of peace on Beechnut. I could just walk with him and not have to say a word. In between takes, I would sit with the cast and Beechnut would stand behind me, sometimes with his head on my shoulder. I didn't have to tie him, up; he would just stand there. I loved being a cowboy... again. The only other times
I'd felt this sense of peace had been while fielding ground balls or playing catch on a baseball field or doing stand-up when everything was working. When filming was over, my agent, Andrea Eastman, gave me Beechnut as a surprise gift. at first, I didn't want him. Owning a horse is an enormous responsibility, and
I was concerned hat my relationship with him was just a location romance. But I accepted, and I rode him until 2009, when he passed away at the age of twenty-eight.
”
”
Billy Crystal (Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys)
“
The essentialist notion of “bad blood” is one of several biological metaphors inspired by a fear of the revenge of the cradle. People anticipate that if they leave even a few of a defeated enemy alive, the remnants will multiply and cause trouble down the line. Human cognition often works by analogy, and the concept of an irksome collection of procreating beings repeatedly calls to mind the concept of vermin.105 Perpetrators of genocide the world over keep rediscovering the same metaphors to the point of cliché. Despised people are rats, snakes, maggots, lice, flies, parasites, cockroaches, or (in parts of the world where they are pests) monkeys, baboons, and dogs.106 “Kill the nits and you will have no lice,” wrote an English commander in Ireland in 1641, justifying an order to kill thousands of Irish Catholics.107 “A nit would make a louse,” recalled a Californian settler leader in 1856 before slaying 240 Yuki in revenge for their killing of a horse.108 “Nits make lice,” said Colonel John Chivington before the Sand Creek Massacre, which killed hundreds of Cheyenne and Arapaho in 1864.109 Cankers, cancers, bacilli, and viruses are other insidious biological agents that lend themselves as figures of speech in the poetics of genocide. When it came to the Jews, Hitler mixed his metaphors, but they were always biological: Jews were viruses; Jews were bloodsucking parasites; Jews were a mongrel race; Jews had poisonous blood.110
”
”
Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined)
“
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.
”
”
William Ritter (The Dire King (Jackaby, #4))
“
But I am pondering over the skill with which you have presented the whole argument in support of your proposition, Ischomachus. For you stated that husbandry is the easiest of all arts to learn, and after hearing all that you have said, I am quite convinced that this is so.
Of course it is, cried Ischomachus; but I grant you, Socrates, that in respect of aptitude for command, which is common to all forms of business alike—agriculture, politics, estate-management, warfare—in that respect the intelligence shown by different classes of men varies greatly.
[...]Just as a love of work may spring up in the mind of a private soldier here and there, so a whole army under the influence of a good leader is inspired with love of work and ambition to distinguish itself under the commander’s eye.
Let this be the feeling of the rank and file for their commander; and I tell you, he is the strong leader, he, and not the sturdiest soldier, not the best with bow and javelin, not the man who rides the best horse and is foremost in facing danger, not the ideal of knight or targeteer, but he who can make his soldiers feel that they are bound to follow him through fire and in any adventure.
[...]And this, in my judgment, is the greatest thing in every operation that makes any demand on the labour of men, and therefore in agriculture. Mind you, I do not go so far as to say that this can be learnt at sight or at a single hearing. On the contrary, to acquire these powers a man needs education; he must be possessed of great natural gifts; above all, he must be a genius.
For I reckon this gift is not altogether human, but divine—this power to win willing obedience: it is manifestly a gift of the gods to the true votaries of prudence. Despotic rule over unwilling subjects they give, I fancy, to those whom they judge worthy to live the life of Tantalus, of whom it is said that in hell he spends eternity, dreading a second death.
”
”
Xenophon (Oeconomicus)