Battle Horse Quotes & Sayings

He's a good horse," Bellamy said, a bit defensively. "He was always willing if you knew how to manage him. Oh, you know, like most horses, he'd get away with whatever he could, but he was never mean-tempered. Not like this."
Ash liked the fact that Bellamy stood up for his horse. "How long has he been off his feed?"
"Couple weeks."
"What's his name?"
"Crusher."
Ash raised an eyebrow. "Crusher?" At the sound of his name, the gelding's ears pricked forward.
Bellamy grimaced. "He's a warhorse, all right? Man doesn't want to ride into battle on a horse named Daisy. — Cinda Williams Chima

The new French theme park based on Napoleon is named Napoleon's Bivouac, and will honor Napoleon with rides, battle reenactments, and the brutal March on Moscow ride. That's a walk-in freezer you stand in for 18 months while you try to eat a dead horse. — Peter Sagal

What are the origins of dressage? Did just, one day, some young horse say to his dad, 'Dad, I don't want to charge into battle ... I just wanna dance'? — Stephen Colbert

Remember: "For want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost, for want of a horseshoe, the horse was lost, for want of a horse, the battle was lost, for want of a battle, the war was lost." This parable should be the mantra of everyone who thinks her or his vote doesn't count. — Gloria Steinem

I have seen soldiers panic at the first sight of battle, and a squire pulling arrows from his body to fight and save his dying horse. Nobility is not a birthright, but is defined by one's actions. — Kevin Costner

One of the great Confederate combat leaders, General John B. Gordon, had sat at his horse and spoken farewell to his men. Some he had seen weeping as they folded burnt and shot-pierced battle flags and laid them on the stacked arms of surrender. As he told his troops his own grief he tried to give them hope to rebuild out of the poverty and ashes to which many would return. Gordon would never forget a Kentucky father who lost two sons, one dying for the North, the other for the South. Over the two graves of his soldier boys the father set up a joint monument inscribed God knows which was right. — Carl Sandburg

I despised myself for my weakness. I may have dreamed all my youth of life as a horse-trader like my father; I may have railed against my conscription and loathed the legions on principle, but even so, every morning in this place I cursed my lack of valour and every night, when I slept, my traitorous
mind brought me dreams drenched in the blood of our enemies as my comrades in the Vth launched themselves into battle, taking risks, winning glory, rising in the ranks, killing the enemy and so becoming men ... all without my being there.
The fact that it was winter, when the weather forced a kind of peace on both sides, and that my comrades were currently enduring endless forced marches over the mountains in western Armenia because their general had deemed them unfit for battle, did nothing to hamper my fantasies. — M.C. Scott

You can not lead a battle if you think you look silly on a horse. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Aspects of life here civility, courtesy, coziness have always bound Britons to their country ... They are part of the British myth, along with lovely countryside, dogs and horses, rose gardens, the Armada, the Battle of Britain. — R. W. Apple

Hot, bright heat filled him like some ecstatic poison, and Hartan's pony shied in terror as a wordless howl burst from his throat. His dripping ears were flat to his skull, fire crackled in his brown eyes, his huge sword blurred in a whirring figure eight before him, and the brigand running at him gawked in sudden panic. The raider's feet skidded in mud as he tried to brake, but it was far too late. He was face-to-face with the worst nightmare of any Norfressan, a Horse Stealer hradani in the grip of the Rage, and a thunderbolt of steel split him from crown to navel. — David Weber

Do you really want to know why you lost?" I asked.
"Do you really have an answer?" he countered.
"You need to get off your horse and run with your men. You don't have the stamina for a long fight. And find a lighter sword."
"But it was my uncle's."
"You're not your uncle."
"But I'm the King, and this is the King's sword," Cahil said. His brows creased together. He seemed confused.
"So wear it to your coronation," I said. "If you use it in battle, you'll be wearing it to your funeral," I said. — Maria V. Snyder

Hippocrates cured many illnesses - and then fell ill and
died. The Chaldaeans predicted the deaths of many others; in
due course their own hour arrived. Alexander, Pompey,
Caesar - who utterly destroyed so many cities, cut down so
many thousand foot and horse in battle - they too departedthis life. Heraclitus often told us the world would end in fire.
But it was moisture that carried him off; he died smeared
with cowshit. Democritus was killed by ordinary vermin,
Socrates by the human kind.
And?
You boarded, you set sail, you've made the passage. Time
to disembark. If it's for another life, well, there's nowhere
without gods on that side either. If to nothingness, then you no
longer have to put up with pain and pleasure, or go on
dancing attendance on this battered crate, your body - so
much inferior to that which serves it.
One is mind and spirit, the other earth and garbage. — Marcus Aurelius

Pot came first when I was young. But I did the work. It wasn't a battle of what came first. They went together like "love and marriage, horse and carriage!" — John Waters

As for women that do not think their own safety worth their thought, that impatient of their present state, resolve as they call it to take the first good Christian that comes; that runs into matrimony, as a horse rushes into battle; I can say nothing to them, but this, that they are a sort of ladies that are to be pray'd for among the rest of distemper'd people; and to me they look like people that venture their whole estates in a lottery where there is a hundred thousand blanks to one prize. — Daniel Defoe

The Nike swoop, the three Adidas stripes, the little Polo player on a horse, the Hollister seagull, the symbols of Philadelphia's professional sports teams, even our high school mascot that you athletes wear to battle other schools - some of you wear our Mustang to class even when there is no sporting event scheduled. These are your symbols, what you wear to prove that your identity matches the identity of others. Much like the Nazis had their swastika. — Matthew Quick

What do you see to the south?" Tanis asked abruptly.
Raistilin glanced at him. "What do I ever see with these eyes of mine Half-Elf?" the mage whispered bitterly. "I see death, death and destruction. I see war." He gestured up above. "The constellations have not returned. The Queen of Darkness is not defeated."
"We may have not won the war," Tanis began, "but surely we have won a major battle
"
Raistlin coughed and shook his head sadly.
"Do you see no hope?"
"Hope is the denial of reality. It is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him plodding along in the vain attempt to reach it."
"Are you saying we should just give up?" Tanis asked, irritably tossing the bark away.
"I'm saying we should remove the carrot and walk forward with our eyes open," Raistin answered. Coughing he drew his robes more closely around him. — Margaret Weis

Remember that a painting - before it is a battle horse, a nude model, or some anecdote - is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order. — Maurice Denis

The war is won but the battle rages, the lion is toothless yet roars, the clown frowns but the Son Shines, the Trumpet is ready to sound, the sword drawn, and the white horse ready to descend, whose rider is called Faithful and True. — Jonah Books

We took off for the tree line, leaving the wounded soldiers to wonder how they'd been beaten by four misfits and a horse. — Rachel Sharp

O where does he stalk like a horse in pastures very far afield? I cannot hear him, and silence writes more terrible things than he can ever deny. Is there a suspicion the battle is lost?
Certainly he killed me fourteen nights in succession. To rise again from such slaughter Messiah must indeed become a woman. He said this absence was the mere mechanics of the thing. But It is not the same. — Elizabeth Smart

Shadowfax tossed his head and cried aloud, as if a trumpet had summoned him to battle. Then he sprang forward. Fire flew from his feet; night rushed over him. As he fell slowly into sleep, Pippin had a strange feeling: he and Gandalf were still as stone, seated upon the statue of a running horse, while the world rolled away beneath his feet with a great noise of wind. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The flames of the fire leapt up and surrounded her, consuming her, becoming her. Heat filled and flushed her, breaking the bottle and she soared up and up. She came to stand in a sun's center. But that even faded and she rode pillion with Emmerich as he crossed the field on his black battle charger, her hands gripping his sides. The edges of his chain-mail bit into her skin and she could hear his labored breath. She could smell his particular scent: horse and leather, sweat and musk. Men roared like the ocean and rushed like waves to slam against the opposing force meeting them outside the walls. — Suzanna J. Linton

The father's job is to teach his children how to be warriors, to give them the confidence to get on the horse to ride into battle when it's necessary to do so. If you don't get that from your father, you have to teach yourself. — Cheryl Strayed

Barbaro

IN MEMORY OF BARBARO
*2003-2007*
CHAMPION FOR THE AGES

On January 29, 2007, Barbaro's owners, Gretchen and Roy Jackson, were forced to make the painful decision to put down their beloved horse, who had fought valiantly for nearly a year with an injury so great, almost no one believed he'd survived for so long. The odds had finally caught up with this brave animal.
The world mourned Barbaro's death, especially his owners and the caretakers who had lovingly tended him from birth, through his training and brilliant racing career, and through his heroic battle againist his devastating injury. But the example Barbaro left for all of us-the courage and grace with which he fought adversity and faced uncertainty-are here for all time. He is a champion for the ages. — Shelley Fraser Mickle

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
or want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horse shoe nail. — Unknown Author 386

Why is it the only joy you show these days is in battle? Why do you hunger for it so? Does it makes you forget? Does it ease your pain?"
Nortah tugged his horse's reins and resume the walk to the stables. "It eases nothing. But it does make me forget, for a while at least. — Anthony Ryan

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle — Robert Louis Stevenson

Whats the difference between a king and his horse?I dont mean some kiddy shit like one has 4 legs and the other has 2, or ones a person and ones an animal. If their form, ability, and power is exactly the same, then why is it one becomes the king and controls the battle and the other one becomes the horse and carries the king? There's only one answer ... INSTINCT!!! — Tite Kubo

I

Mountains!
I whip my swift horse, glued to my saddle.
I turn my head startled,
The sky is three foot three above me!*

II

Mountains!
Like great waves surging in a crashing sea,
Like a thousand stallions
In full gallop in the heat of battle.

III

Mountains!
Piercing the blue of heaven, your barbs unblunted!
The skies would fall
But for your strength supporting. — Mao Zedong

There is a lot of folklore about equestrian statues, especially the ones with riders on them. There is said to be a code in the number and placement of the horse's hooves: If one of the horse's hooves is in the air, the rider was wounded in battle; two legs in the air means that the rider was killed in battle; three legs in the air indicates that the rider got lost on the way to the battle; and four legs in the air means that the sculptor was very, very clever. Five legs in the air means that there's probably at least one other horse standing behind the horse you're looking at; and the rider lying on the ground with his horse lying on top of him with all four legs in the air means that the rider was either a very incompetent horseman or owned a very bad-tempered horse. — Terry Pratchett

[Babbington] "What did [the Doctor, Stephen] do to you, sir?"
[Captain Aubrey] "Well, I am ashamed to say he took a pistol-ball out of the small of my back. It must have been when I turned to hail for more hands- thank God I did not. At the time I thought it was one of those vile horses that were capering about abaft the wheel."
"Oh, sir, surely a horse would never have fired off a pistol? — Patrick O'Brian

OK, so this is the story of a Chinese father and son and their best horse. The horse runs away, for no reason, and lives with some nomads across the border. The son is very upset that the horse has gone, and the father says to him, "What makes you so sure this isn't a blessing?" Then the horse comes back, a few months later, with a beautiful nomad stallion. The son is thrilled, but the father says to him, "What makes you so sure this isn't a disaster?" The son loves riding the new horse, but one day falls and breaks his leg. Everyone is sad for him, and his father says, wait for it, "What makes you so sure this isn't a blessing?" At some point the nomads invade, and every able-bodied young man has to go off to battle. The nomads basically wipe out all the men, but the son is safe because he is lame, and so he and his father live on and look after one another. — Scarlett Thomas

Amongst these brave soldiers was Dfr Vir Singh (Retd) of 4 Horse, whose flesh was charred off his bones by a Cobra missile that hit his tank. He spoke with great regard for his Squadron Commander Maj Bhupinder Singh, MVC, who too was severely burned in the same attack after they had destroyed many tanks in the Battle of Phillora. When the then Prime Minister of India Lal Bahadur Shastri visited a dying Maj Singh in the Army Base Hospital, Delhi, the officer had tears in his eyes. A touched Shastri told Maj Singh that tears didn't become a brave soldier like him. Maj Singh replied, 'Sir, I'm not pained because of any injury. I'm anguished that a soldier is not being able to salute his Prime Minister. — Rachna Bisht Rawat

Two kinds of writers. Those who think this life is all there is, and want to describe everything: the fall, the battle, the accouchement, the horse-race. That is, Tolstoy. And those who think this life is a kind of testing-ground (for what we don't know - to see how much pleasure + pain we can bear or what pleasure + pain are?) and want to describe only the essentials. That is, Dostoyevsky. The two alternatives. How can one write like T. after D.? The task is to be as good as D. - as serious spiritually, + then go on from there. — Susan Sontag

As Richard mounted his horse to follow, some of his Household protested that he must not wear into battle the helmet with the golden crown, for it would mark him as the prime target for the enemy. Quietly Richard replied that he would live, and die, King of England. — Paul Murray Kendall

30. There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord. 31. The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the Lord. — Anonymous

Few understand that horses are never truly domesticated. Their instincts are always there and readily take over once they are free. They stay or return to us by their choice, not the compulsion forced upon them.
Once realized you must also recognize only kindness will prevail to make a partner of an animal who'd prefer only the company of his kind and the freedom of wide open spaces. Any other relationship is based on the inadequacies of the tormentor on the tormented. One will lose. It's always the horse, for even if he wins his defensive battle the mark of rogue will remain.
It's been witnessed how a mustang will give up his life if his freedom can't be regained when in the grip of adversity. There's so much for us to learn from this, if we'd only learn to listen to their message. — Judith-Victoria Douglas

There's a reason I've always relied on you for the necessary political miracles, Emily," Hamish told her with a smile. "Give me a fleet problem, or a naval battle to fight, and I "know exactly what to do. But dealing with scum like High Ridge and Descroix - ?" He shook his head. "I just can't wrap my mind around how to handle them."
"Be honest, dear," Emily corrected him gently. "It's not that you really can't do it, and you know it. It's that you get so furious with them that you wind up climbing onto your high moral horse so you can ride them under the hooves of your righteous fury. But when you close your knight errant's helmet, the visibility through that visor is just a little limited, isn't it? — David Weber

If we are to stand the final heat of the battle, we must learn to stand our ground in the face of cavalry or baton charges and allow ourselves to be trampled under horses' hooves, or be bruised with baton charges. — Mahatma Gandhi

And you may not be able to see this yet, but perhaps there will come a time - it could be years from now - when you'll need to get on your horse and ride into battle and you're going to hesitate. You're going to falter. To heal the wound your father made, you're going to have to get on that horse and ride into battle like a warrior. — Cheryl Strayed

Dream big and see further! Sharpen your eyes; you have the eagle's sight. Quicken your steps; you have the horse's limbs. All that is a burden for others would be beaten several times by you! — Israelmore Ayivor

A little neglect may breed mischief; for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want a horse the rider was lost; for want of the rider the battle was lost. — Benjamin Franklin

All this stuff you heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans, traditionally, love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle ... Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost - and will never lose - a war, because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans. — George C. Scott

Tell me what it's like. The race." "What it's like is a battle. A mess of horses and men and blood. The fastest and strongest of what is left from two weeks of preparation on the sand. It's the surf in your face, the deadly magic of November on your skin, the Scorpio drums in the place of your heartbeat. It's speed, if you're lucky. It's life and it's death or it's both, and there's nothing like it. — Maggie Stiefvater

If you have ever seen a dragon in a pinch, you will realize that this was only poetical exaggeration applied to any hobbit, even to Old Took's great-granduncle Bullroarer, who was so huge (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse. He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king Golfibul's head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf was invented at the same moment. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I see ranks ready for battle, stretching out. Five, six horses across, ranks in formation. Endlessly. — Janet Morris

The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the LORD. — Anonymous

Wells?" Someone was prodding his arm. "Hey, Wells?" Wells's eyes snapped open, draining the last droplets of a dream from his mind. He'd been floating down a canal in Venice. No, wait, he'd been riding a horse into battle alongside Napoleon. Kendall — Kass Morgan

It was something he had never quite understood about himself. He had seen thousands of men die in nearly ten years of war and could look on it at times with a near-total detachment, but an animal suffering - be it a horse or needra injured in battle, or the stag now dying - moved him deeply. — Raymond E. Feist

have this people in Jerusalem turned away with a contentious loathing? They have taken hold of what is false, and they are not willing to return. {8:6} I paid close attention and I listened carefully. No one is speaking what is good. There is no one who does penance for his sin, saying: 'What have I done?' They have all turned to their own course, like a horse rushing with fury into battle. {8:7} The hawk in the heavens has known her time. The turtledove, and the swallow, and the stork have kept the time of — The Biblescript

One of your northmen hit me with a morningstar during the battle on the Green Fork. I escaped him by falling off my horse. (Tyrion) — George R R Martin

Three Songs 1 Mountain. I whip my quick horse and don't dismount and look back in wonder. The sky is three feet away. 2 Mountain. The sea collapses and the river boils. Innumerable horses race insanely into the peak of battle. 3 Mountain. Peaks pierce the green sky, unblunted. The sky would fall but for the columns of mountains. — Mao Zedong

I thought of something I learned from reading Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas by Mari Sandoz. Crazy Horse believes that he will be victorious in battle, but if he stops to take spoils from the battlefield, he will be defeated. He tattoos lightning bolts on the ears of his horses so the sight of them will remind him of this as he rides. I tried to apply this lesson to the things at hand, careful not to take spoils that were not rightfully mine. — Patti Smith

I have just read your dispatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses, Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the Battle of Antietam that fatigues anything? — Abraham Lincoln

Wake, soldier wake, thy war-horse waits
To bear thee to the battle back;
Thou slumberest at a foeman's gates,
Thy dog would break thy bivouac;
Thy plume is trailing in the dust,
And thy red falchion gathering rust. — Thomas Kibble Hervey

... the Chinese have become very good at coming up with puns, alternative words, and memes. For example, they talk about the battle between the grass-mud horse and the river crab. The grass-mud horse, caonima, is the phonogram for "mother-fucker" - what the netizens call themselves. The river crab, hexie, is the phonogram for "harmonisation" or "censorship". So you have a battle between the caonima and the hexie. When big political stories happen, you find netizens discussing them using such weird phrases and words that you can't understand them even if you have a PhD in Chinese. — Michael Anti

Fuck you," said Czernobog. "Fuck you and fuck your mother and fuck the fucking horse you fucking rode in on. You will not even die in battle. No warrior will taste your blood. No one alive will take your life. You will die a soft, poor death. You will die with a kiss on your lips and a lie in your heart. — Neil Gaiman

When he smelled battle afar off, Winston Churchill resembled the war horse in Job who turned not back from the sword, but 'paweth in the valley and saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha.' He was the only British minister to have a perfectly clear conviction of what Britain should do and to act upon it without hesitation. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Science affects the average man and woman in two ways already. He or she benefits by its application driving a motor-car or omnibus instead of a horse-drawn vehicle, being treated for disease by a doctor or surgeon rather than a witch, and being killed with an automatic pistol or shell in place of a dagger or a battle-axe. — John B. S. Haldane

I intend to keep her close by, to keep her next to me at all times. She will drink from my cup and eat from my plate to protect me from your poisons. She will sleep beneath me and hover over me and never leave my side. In fact, I leave in three days for Kilmorda, and she is coming with me. She will ride in front of me, astride my horse, clinging to me as I go into battle, a human shield against those you send against me. — Amy Harmon

Old English poetry also contained a wide range of conventional poetic diction, many of the words being created to allow alliterative patterns to be made. There are therefore numerous alternatives for key words like battle, warrior, horse, ship, the sea, prince, and so on. Some are decorative periphrases: a king can be a 'giver of rings' or a 'giver of treasure' (literally, a king was expected to provide his warriors with gifts after they had fought for him). — Ronald Carter