49 Horse Quotes

Horses have long captured the human imagination with their remarkable beauty, strength, and spirit. Whether you’re an equestrian enthusiast, a lover of literature, or someone who simply admires these majestic creatures, horse quotes have a unique way of resonating with our souls. In this blog post, we've curated a selection of the top 49 horse quotes that celebrate the grace, wisdom, and enduring bond between humans and horses. Prepare to be inspired and moved by words that highlight the profound impact horses have on our lives.

1. “The horses suddenly began to neigh, protestingAgainst those who were drowning them in the ocean.The horses sank to the bottom, neighing, neighing.Until they had all gone down.That is all. Nevertheless, I pity them,Those bay horses, that never saw land again.” - Boris Slutsky

2. “Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. ” - W.C. Fields

3. “A horse which stops dead just before a jump and thus propels its rider into a graceful arc provides a splendid excuse for general merriment.” - H.R.H. Prince Philip

4. “He's of the colour of the nutmeg. And of the heat of the ginger.... he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him; he is indeed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts.” - William Shakespeare

5. “Employers are like horses — they require management.” - P.G. Wodehouse

6. “My troubles are all over, and I am at home; and often before I am quite awake, I fancy I am still in the orchard at Birtwick, standing with my old friends under the apple trees.” - Anna Sewell

7. “A horse loves freedom, and the weariest old work horse will roll on the ground or break into a lumbering gallop when he is turned loose into the open.” - Gerald Raftery

8. “Why do you like show jumping?""... Beauty and excitement. The elements of trust, talent, training, love, and danger make show jumping a thrilling and aesthetic experience. It's really the ultimate test of two nervous systems--the kinetic transfer of the rider's muscle to the horse's muscle enables them to clear those jumps. And there's nothing like it--horse and rider forming an arc of beauty, efficiency, and power, like a double helix.""DNA,""Yes, DNA, the code to life.” - Ainslie Sheridan

9. “I don't like people," said Velvet. "... I only like horses.” - Enid Bagnold

10. “William: My brother has an appreciation of art, so I imagine the woman he chooses must be beautiful beyond the pale. Once he outgrows his current predilection with painting and accepts his family responsibilities, he'll need a wife who can move throughout society. She must have proper carriage and be a witty conversationalist. She should have excellent bloodlines as well, in the event of offspring.Emma: With the possible exception of a witty conversationalist, I believe you've described all the attributes of a racehorse.” - Donna MacMeans

11. “Failure was startling, really. So startling that I hardly noticed it at all.” - Jane Smiley

12. “Fascination with horses predated every other single thing I knew. Before I was a mother, before I was a writer, before I knew the facts of life, before I was a schoolgirl, before I learned to read, I wanted a horse.” - Jane Smiley

13. “Horses are of a breed unique to Fantasyland. They are capable of galloping full-tilt all day without a rest. Sometimes they do not require food or water. They never cast shoes, go lame or put their hooves down holes, except when the Management deems it necessary, as when the forces of the Dark Lord are only half an hour behind. They never otherwise stumble. Nor do they ever make life difficult for Tourists by biting or kicking their riders or one another. They never resist being mounted or blow out so that their girths slip, or do any of the other things that make horses so chancy in this world. For instance, they never shy and seldom whinny or demand sugar at inopportune moments. But for some reason you cannot hold a conversation while riding them. If you want to say anything to another Tourist (or vice versa), both of you will have to rein to a stop and stand staring out over a valley while you talk. Apart from this inexplicable quirk, horses can be used just like bicycles, and usually are. Much research into how these exemplary animals come to exist has resulted in the following: no mare ever comes into season on the Tour and no stallion ever shows an interest in a mare; and few horses are described as geldings. It therefore seems probable that they breed by pollination. This theory seems to account for everything, since it is clear that the creatures do behave more like vegetables than mammals. Nomads appears to have a monopoly on horse-breeding. They alone possess the secret of how to pollinate them.” - Diana Wynne Jones

14. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him participate in synchronized diving.” - Cuthbert Soup

15. “Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.” - Samuel Johnson

16. “When the horse was little, Massie had covered the walls with posters of young fillies that she thought Brownie would find sexy.” - Lisi Harrison

17. “Proper handling of a horse like this is no simple matter. He was trained to race, from birth. Not only to race, but to be the best. Once a champion, he was spoiled with attention and permissive handling. Add to that, he's an ungelded male, with a strong natural mating drive. It all adds up to a horse with a mile-wide streak of arrogance, bloody bored out of his mind. Without proper exercise and opportunities to mate, all that aggressive energy festers. He becomes moody, intractable, withdrawn, destructive."Ashworth raised an eyebrow at Bellamy. "Is it just me, or is this conversation becoming uncomfortably personal?"Spencer fumed. "I'm not referring to myself, you ass.” - Tessa Dare

18. “Horses make a landscape look beautiful.” - Alice Walker

19. “There is no happiness like the pounding of so many horses into one. I imagine I hear the horses laugh. I think it every time. I think that running is the way a horse may laugh out loud. When I am older I will believe that following in their wake has filled me with the inconsolable joy of animals.” - Mark Spragg

20. “I was a boy, and I believed deeply in the sightedness of horses. I believed that there was nothing that they did not witness. I believed that to have a horse between my legs, to extend my pulse and blood and energy to theirs, enhanced my vision. Made of me a seer. I believed them to be the dappled, sorrel, roan, bay, black pupils in the eyes of God.” - Mark Spragg

21. “Do you give the horse his strength or clothe his neck with a flowing mane? Do you make him leap like a locust, striking terror with his proud snorting? He paws fiercely, rejoicing in his strength, and charges into the fray. He laughs at fear, afraid of nothing; he does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles against his side, along with the flashing spear and lance. In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground; he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.” - Anonymous

22. “Sean reaches between us and slides a thin bracelet of red ribbons over my free hand. Lifting my arm, he presses his lips against the inside of my wrist. I'm utterly still; I feel my pulse tap several times against his lips, and then he releases my hand."For luck," he says. He takes Dove's lead from me."Sean," I say, and he turns. I take his chin and kiss his lips, hard. I'm reminded, all of a sudden, of that first day on the beach, when I pulled his head from the water. "For luck," I say to his startled face.” - Maggie Stiefvater

23. “It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.” - Maggie Stiefvater

24. “I had been riding horses before my memory kicked in, so my life with horses had no beginning. It simply appeared from the fog of infancy. I survived a difficult childhood by traveling on the backs of horses, and in adulthood the pattern didn't change.” - Monty Roberts

25. “I was drawn to horses as if they were magnets. It was in my blood. I must have inherited from my grandfather a genetic proclivity toward the equine species. Perhaps there's a quirk in the DNA that makes horse people different from everyone else, that instantly divides humanity into those who love horses and the others, who simply don't know.” - Allan J. Hamilton

26. “Those horses must have been Spanish jennets, born of mares mated with a zephyr; for they went as swiftly as the wind, and the moon, which had risen at our departure to give us light, rolled through the sky like a wheel detached from its carriage...” - Théophile Gautier

27. “The way to whistle for a horse is to purse your lips together loosely, blow moderately hard and sing "Whee-oo! Whee-oo! Whee-oo!" in a high-pitched voice. Try it. You can do it.” - Mildred Armstrong Kalish

28. “Owain told me about the beautiful, fair-haired Vesta. It took me several minutes to work out that Vesta was a horse, and that Owain was possibly in love with her.” - Alexandra Bracken

29. “He never gave up. And he does that for us” - Steven Spielberg

30. “Wherever you are, I will find you and I will bring you home” - Steven Spielberg

31. “You're not alone, are you? Because I'm here” - Steven Spielberg

32. “What kind of a horse?""A miraculous kind of horse” - Steven Spielberg

33. “Choose friends who are positive and loving.” - Bella Sara

34. “Be a person you respect.” - Bella Sara

35. “You’ve gone far away to a place with no horses and very little grass, and you’re studying how to write a story with a happy ending. If you can write that ending for yourself, maybe you can come back.” - Jennifer Echols

36. “By midmorning eight of the horses stood tied and the other eight were wilder than deer, scattering along the fence and bunching and running in a rising sea of dust as the day warmed, coming to reckon slowly with the remorselessness of this rendering of their fluid and collective selves into that condition of separate and helpless paralysis which seemed to be among them like a creeping plague.” - Cormac McCarthy

37. “Peter! Were you looking for a horse-shoe?""No; I was expecting the horse, but the shoe is a piece of pure, gorgeous luck.""And observation. I found it.""You did. And I could kiss you for it. You need not shrink and tremble. I am not going to do it. When I kiss you, it will be an important event -- one of those things which stand out among their surroundings like the first time you tasted li-chee. It will not be an unimportant sideshow attached to a detective investigation.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

38. “It doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses.” - Daphne Fielding

39. “Look," Peter said.To the north was a series of vast grassy plains, and there, just looking like specks at first, was a herd of horses, a species that in Neverland had never been tamed. They were beautiful, flashes of brown and black and tan, their coats gleaming. There was no reason for them to be running that Tiger Lily could see. It was likely that they just loved to run."That's what I want my life to be," Peter said, staring down at the horses.Tiger Lily sank against him and watched the herd, and thought that was what she wanted too.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

40. “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

41. “Jimmy held on to the reins for dear life, and thought that a horse was about the most slippery creature to sit on that he had ever met. He slithered first one way and then another, and at last he slid off altogether and landed with a bump on the ground. Sticky Stanley and Lotta held on to one another and laughed till the tears ran down their faces. They thought it was the funniest sight in the world to see poor Jimmy slipping about on the solemn, cantering horse.” - Enid Blyton

42. “And at year's end they broke the stable door. The man and his horse, together, gallop yet, Beyond the sunset's end, the pounding hooves, Both harmony and beat for their duet.” - Jo Walton

43. “Before he left Rome, Marcus had been in a fair way to becoming a charioteer, in Cradoc's sense of the word, and now desire woke in him, not to possess this team, for he was not one of those who much be able to say "Mine" before they can truly enjoy a thing, but to have them out and harnessed; to feel the vibrating chariot floor under him, and the spread reins quick with life in his hands, and these lovely, fiery little creatures in the traces, his will and theirs at one.” - Rosemary Sutcliff

44. “Love the horses, but don’t ride on them! Riding the horses is a culture, a wrong culture!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

45. “One spring morning timing the lean near-liquid progress of a horse on a track, the dust exploding, the rapid hasping of his hocks, coming up the straight foreshortened and awobble and passing elongate and birdlike wish harsh breaths and slatted brisket heaving and the muscles sliding and brunching in clocklike flexion under the wet black hide and a gout of foam hung from the long jaw and then gone in a muted hoofclatter, the aging magistrate snapped his thumb from the keep of the stopwatch he held and palmed it into his waistcoat pocket and looking at nothing, nor child nor horse, said anent that simple comparison of rotary motions and in the oratory to which he was prone that they had witnessed a thing against which time would not prevail.” - Cormac McCarthy

46. “A BlessingJust off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.And the eyes of those two Indian poniesDarken with kindness.They have come gladly out of the willowsTo welcome my friend and me.We step over the barbed wire into the pastureWhere they have been grazing all day, alone.They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happinessThat we have come.They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.There is no loneliness like theirs.At home once more,They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,For she has walked over to meAnd nuzzled my left hand.She is black and white,Her mane falls wild on her forehead,And the light breeze moves me to caress her long earThat is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.Suddenly I realizeThat if I stepped out of my body I would breakInto blossom.” - James Wright

47. “Until recently, I believed all horses were alike. They’ve been giant, four-footed animals with ugly dispositions and alarmingly large teeth for so long that it’s a bit startling to notice how different they are from each other. Mara’s mare, for instance, is a chestnut bay except for a wide white blaze down her nose that makes her seem perpetually surprised. My huge plodding mount is a dark brown near to black creature, with the most unruly mane I’ve ever seen. Her shaggy forelock covers her right eye and reaches almost to her mouth.Mara’s mare head-butts her in the chest. Grinning, Mara plants a kiss between her wide, dumb eyes, then murmurs something.“Have you named her?” I ask.“Yes! Her name is Jasmine.”I grimace. “But jasmine is such a sweet, pretty flower.”Mara laughs. “Have you named yours?”“Her name is Horse.”She rolls her eyes. “If you want to get along with your mount you have to learn each others’ languages. That means starting with a good name.”“All right.” I pretend to consider. “What about Imbecile? Or Poops A Lot?” - Rae Carson

48. “I had a cup of tea, thought about my day and mostly about the horse whom, though I'd only known him a short time, I called my friend. I have few friends and am glad to have a horse for a friend. After the meal I smoked a cigarette and mused on the luxury it would be to go out, instead of talking to myself and boring myself to death with the same endless stories I'm forever telling myself. I am a very boring person, despite my enormous intelligence and distinguished appearance, and nobody knows this better than I. I've often told myself that if only I were given the opportunity, I'd perhaps become the centre of intellectual society. But by dint of talking to myself so much, I tend to repeat the same things all the time. But what can you expect? I'm a recluse.” - Leonora Carrington

49. “Ty swung around. He was obviously fed up with Ben's negative attitude.” - Lauren Brooke