Horse Sense Quotes & Sayings

The first two sentences are hard to understand, but make some kind of sense. The last sentence is merely rearranged but makes no natural sense at all. (This is all assuming it makes some sort of sense for an old lady to be swallowing cats in the first place, which is patently absurd, but it turns out she swallowed a goat too, not to mention a horse, so we'll let the cat pass without additional comment.) — Tom Stafford

My philosophy is simple: It's a down-home, common, horse-sense approach to things. — Dolly Parton

I'm so enraptured that I don't even notice Aithinne has stopped until Kiaran rounds his horse close enough to tap my arm. I slow. "What is it?"

Aithinne shakes her head once. "I sense something."

"I don't," Kiaran says.

His sister glances at him. "Of course you don't, you silly thing. You wouldn't if it were right up your arse."

I snicker, and at Kiaran's glare, I say, "You're the one who taught her to swear, not me. — Elizabeth May

Nineteenth-century liberalism had assumed that man was a rational being who operated naturally according to his own best interests, so that in the end, what was reasonable would prevail. On this principle liberals defended extension of the suffrage toward the goal of one man, one vote. But a rise in literacy and in the right to vote, as the event proved, did nothing to increase common sense in politics. The mob that is moved by waving the bloody shirt, that decides elections in response to slogans - Free Silver, Hang the Kaiser, Two Cars in Every Garage - is not exhibiting any greater political sense than Marie Antoinette, who said, "Let them eat cake," or Caligula, who made his horse a consul. The common man proved no wiser than the decadent aristocrat. He has not shown in public affairs the innate wisdom which democracy presumed he possessed. — Barbara W. Tuchman

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

To part with money is a sacrifice beyond almost all men endowed with a sense of order. There is scarcely any man alive who does not think himself meritorious for giving his neighbour five pounds. Thriftless gives, not from a beneficent pleasure in giving, but from a lazy delight in spending. He would not deny himself one enjoyment; not his opera-stall, not his horse, not his dinner, not even the pleasure of giving Lazarus the five pounds. — William Makepeace Thackeray

I've worked a lot of historical stuff back in Sweden and there's always conflict with horses. I get a bit paranoid when I'm on them, and they can sense that and they get a bit paranoid. It ends up in this bad spiral where I don't want to be on them, and they don't want me on their backs. — George Blagden

I wanted to be a hummingbird.
It made sense to long for rapid wings and the ability to hover always
to be Huitzilopochtli taming my snakes.
Sometimes though, the thought exhausts me and
I want to be a slow horse, a tennis shoe. — Ada Limon

A man aint so different from a horse or a mule, come long come short, except a mule or a horse has got a little more sense. — William Faulkner

My favorite animal is the mule. He has more horse sense than a horse. He knows when to stop eating - and he knows when to stop working. — Harry S. Truman

Know thou the self (spirit) as riding in a chariot, The body as the chariot. Know thou the intellect as the chariot-driver, And the mind as the reins. The senses, they say, are the horses; The objects of sense, what they range over. The self combined with senses and mind Wise men call the enjoyer. — Albert Pike

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. — W.C. Fields

The trouble with the world is, Frankie, that there are too many ideals and too little horse sense . . . Human beings don't like peace and good will and everybody loving everybody else . . . they're not made like that. Human beings like eating and drinking and loving and hating. They also like showing off, grabbing all they can, fighting for their rights and bossing anybody who'll give 'em half a chance. — Philip Hoare

God is a different league of person from us, but God is a person like us, not an abstract force or a principle. So despite the huge difference, Genesis says we are made in God's image. Human beings are the kind of entity God would be if God were earthly. God could hardly have become a horse; horses were not made in God's image. Human beings were made God-like, so it was not so unnatural for God to become a human being. It is this fact that makes it possible for God sometimes to appear in human form in the Old Testament, and it eventually makes possible, even makes natural, God's incarnation in Christ. In this sense it was not logically difficult for God to become a human being although it involved some sacrifice. — John E. Goldingay

I feel connected with people because of their sense of humor, worldview, and what they think and feel about certain existential issues (things not affected, in my view, by if someone rides a horse or drives a car or talks only IRL or only by typing), not how old they are, what they use to convey what they think and feel about certain existential issues, or if we have both watched the same TV shows or looked at the same websites. — Tao Lin

In short, on the basis of horse sense and the best scientific information, there was nothing good to be said for the exploration of space. The time was long past when one nation could seem more glorious than another by hurling some heavy object into nothingness. — Kurt Vonnegut

(W)hen a load is too heavy for one horse to pull, what do we do? Hitch another to it, don't we? That's just common sense. Well, son, things that sort of weigh on a man's mind and heart may be too heavy for him to make much headway with alone. — Kate Seredy

:The way to the Seaglass Stair will be long and arduous. There will be those who wish to stop you. They will kill you to keep you from succeeding.:
:Why? That's insane.:
:As if insanity were some fabrication, some dark tale Hemfra told you one night when you were a child and refused to sleep. There will always be resistance to anything and everything, defying all logic, all natural sense of self-preservation. There will be those who wish for you to simply let the world fade away. It is the way of humans to be illogical for the sake of personal conviction and made up nonsense.: — Ash Gray

The words Lafayette used to describe that triumph - "I did not hesitate to be disagreeable to preserve my independence" - applied to getting his way regarding America as well. Perhaps the most emblematic anecdote foretelling Lafayette's stubborn refusal to give up his American dream was the boyhood story about how one day, one of his Parisian schoolteachers was talking up the virtues of an obedient horse. According to Lafayette, "I described the perfect horse as one which, at the sight of the whip, had the sense to throw his rider to the ground before he could be whipped. — Sarah Vowell

This was a little joke of John's; he used to say that a regular course of "the Birtwick horseballs" would cure almost any vicious horse; these balls, he said, were made up of patience and gentleness, firmness and petting, one pound of each to be mixed up with half a pint of common sense, and given to the horse every day. — Anna Sewell

A burro is an ass. A burrow is a hole in the ground. A reporter should know the difference. — Fred Reed

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

A nation's not a child, for God's sake ... It's like a wild horse you tame by breaking it. Or a fiery woman you slap till she sees sense and warms your bed. — David Hewson

You're probably wondering: why were Medusa's kids a golden warrior and a winged horse? And how had they been stuck in Medusa's body all those years?Heck, I dunno. I'm just telling you how it was. You want stuff to make sense, you're in the wrong universe — Rick Riordan

How great a quality is horse sense! Someone has defined it as that something which keeps horses from betting on men! — Vincent Massey

This isn't a courtroom, pal," I said to Nelson, "this is the gutter. No fancy robes, no platitudes engraved in marble, no brass railing dividing the sides. This is the streets and the alleys. this is the Chicago we really live in. Here justice isn't dispensed with a wooden gavel, it's taken with your bare hands. It may be Tubby's world, a part of it, but it's also August Jansen's world, and my world, and yours. Darrow's a great man but this work comes after the fact, after the real battles of life are fought. Lawyers and judges pick up the pieces after the dust settles. Their job is to make sense of what's happened, not make it happen. That occurs in the gutter where blood and bone and horse manure and coal dust and sweat and fear blend and roil. In the end you either have hope or sewage. It can go either way, but it goes on. — James Conroy

It's like doing one of those dumb math problems: three people are driving at 20mph in a car carrying two gallons of gas and a horse doing yoga, when a car traveling at 30mph with two clowns drinking cola collides, what time is it in Tokyo? It doesn't make any sense and the only answer I ever come up with is who — Jane Harvey-Berrick

Sometimes the whole world feels like that horse to me, I say aloud. Does that make sense? Like everyone's just groaning & screaming through the pain, hoping something better comes out. — Emily Henry

In the corporate world, if you have analysts, due diligence, and no horse sense, you've just described hell. — Charlie Munger

Horses in the Book of Mormon would be another. You have relatively few mentions of horses, but there are some, and we don't know exactly how they were used; they don't seem to be all that common. Were they horses as we understood them, [or] does the term describe some other animal? Languages don't always and cultures don't always classify things the way we would expect. We have what we call common-sense ways of doing it. They're not common sense; they're just ours. But again, we don't have a strong case there. We're just problem solving there. — Daniel C. Peterson

The profession of music is lacking in horse sense, not only because the commonplace variety of horse is absent from its operations, but because parts of the horse are noticeably present. — Harry Partch

You are not a man as ordinary men are. They think they have a right to all beasts; to hunt them and eat them, or to subjugate them and rule their lives. You know you have no such right to mastery. The horse that carries you will do so because he wishes to, as does the wolf that hunts beside you. You have a deeper sense of yourself in the world. You believe you have a right, not to rule it, but to be part of it. Predator or prey; there is no shame to being either one. — Robin Hobb

In this world, some time ago, far past anyone's remembering,women as a kind had done something so terrible, so awful, so fantastically cruel that they and their daughters and their daughters' daughters were forever beyond forgiveness until the end of time- unforgiving, distrusted, enslaved, made to suffer for the least offenses committed against any man. What was remembered were the terms of our survival as a class: We were to be docile, beautiful,uncomplaining, pure, and failing that at the least useful.bin return we might be allowed something like a long life. But if we were not any of these things, but a man's reckoning, or if perchance we violated their sense of that pact, we would have no protection whatsoever and were to be treated worse than any wild dog or lame horse. — Alexander Chee

Too many photographers try too hard. They try to lift photography into the realm of Art, because they have an inferiority complex about their craft. You and I would see more interesting photography if they would stop worrying, and instead, apply horse-sense to the problem of recording the look and feel of their own era. — Jessie Tarbox Beals

He never got tired of watching someone who'd been hurt in some way rediscover a sense of joy riding on the back of a horse. Buckwheat — Pamela Clare

I've never seen anyone move like she did," Chaol breathed. "I've never seen anyone run that fast. Dorian, it was like..." Chaol shook his head. "I found a horse within seconds of her taking off, and she still outran me. Who can do that?"

Dorian might have dismissed it as a warped sense of time due to fear and grief, but he'd had magic coursing through his veins only moments ago. — Sarah J. Maas

Life is short, nature is hostile, and man is ridiculous; but oddly enough most misfortunes have their compensations, and with a certain humour and a good deal of horse-sense one can make a fairly good job of what is after all a matter of very small consequence. — W. Somerset Maugham

Computers are like horses; they can sense fear and will act based on that. — Adam C. Engst

Never look a gift horse in the mouth. — Jerome

The Anselmian call for "faith seeking understanding" may start and gather it's energy not in rational study of past theological points but in the pursuit to make sense of our concrete and lived experiences of Jesus who finds us in a hole, knocks us from our horse, or comes to our daughter in her sleep. — Andrew Root

If onThe serious way Mark talked about the rule reminded Charlay what a marvelous age ten was. And Charley thought it was a pity that everybody couldn't stay ten for the rest of their lives. I everybody were ten, Charley thought, meybe rules and common decency and horse sense would have a Chinaman's chance. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

When I breathe down my nose to say how do you do to a horse, it can hear that breath at anything up to twenty yards, for horses have the most acute sense of hearing. — Barbara Woodhouse

Horse sense is the instinct that keeps horses from betting on men. — Josephine Tey

As I moved Star forward, I became light as a feather. Inside of today's instruction, the weight I'd been bearing was suddenly gone. All at once, it made sense. I realized I'd been holding back the whole time--holding back on riding my horse, on loving someone, on really living life.

It's not in the reins. — Carly Kade

The Englishman walks before the law like a trained horse in the circus. He has the sense of legality in his bones, in his muscles. — Maxim Gorky

Flaming enthusiasm, backed by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success. — Dale Carnegie

Plain horse sense ought to tell us that anything that makes no change in the man who professes it makes no difference to God either, and it is an easily observable fact that for countless numbers of persons the change from no-faith to faith makes no actual difference in the life. — Kevin DeYoung

Death knew that to tinker with the fate of one individual could destroy the whole world. He knew this. The knowledge was built into him.

To Bill Door, he realised, it was so much horse elbows. — Terry Pratchett

Americans have a taste for ... rocking-chairs. A flippant critic might suggest that they select rocking-chairs so that, even when they are sitting down, they need not be sitting still. Something of this restlessness in the race may really be involved in the matter; but I think the deeper significance of the rocking-chair may still be found in the deeper symbolism of the rocking-horse. I think there is behind all this fresh and facile use of wood a certain spirit that is childish in the good sense of the word; something that is innocent, and easily pleased. — G.K. Chesterton

They're like little boys, men. Sometimes of course they're rather naughty and you have to pretend to be angry with them. They attach so much importance to such entirely unimportant things that it's really touching. And they're so helpless. Have you never nursed a man when he's ill? It wrings your heart. It's just like a dog or a horse. They haven't got the sense to come in out of the rain, poor darlings. They have all the charming qualities that accompany general incompetence. They're sweet and good and silly, and tiresome and selfish. You can't help liking them, they're so ingenuous, and so simple. They have no complexity or finesse. I think they're sweet, but it's absurd to take them seriously. — W. Somerset Maugham

In the dark room a cloud of yellow dust flew from beneath the tool like a scatter of sparks from under the hooves of a galloping horse. The twin wheels turned and hummed. Binet was smiling, his chin down, his nostrils distended. He seemed lost in the kind of happiness which, as a rule, accompanies only those mediocre occupations that tickle the intelligence with easy difficulties, and satisfy it with a sense of achievement beyond which there is nothing left for dreams to feed on. — Gustave Flaubert

Every child senses, with all the horse sense that's in him, that any parent is angry inside when children misbehave and they dread more the anger that is rarely or never expressed openly, wondering how awful it might be. — Benjamin Spock

There's no sense in whipping a tired horse, because he'll quit on you. More horses are whipped out of the money than into it. — Eddie Arcaro

Those then, who resist a confirmation of public order, are the true Artificers of monarchy - not that this is the intention of the generality of them. Yet it would not be difficult to lay the finger upon some of their party who may justly be suspected. When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits - despotic in his ordinary demeanour - known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty - when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity - to join in the cry of danger to liberty - to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion - to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day - It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may "ride the storm and direct the whirlwind. — Alexander Hamilton

I, for one, thought this would be something good for Settlers to know from the get-go. With so much risk, why did SA feel the consequences of exposure were something to be concealed until there was not choice but to drag people like Monica and me into their secret beige meeting room and scare us half to death after we'd screwed up? It made about as much sense as extremely conservative parents not telling their daughters about the consequences of sex until after they were already pregnant. Shutting the barn door after the horse was loose, much?
But then, I was beginning to think SA wasn't nearly as smart as they believed themselves to be. Our remaining undiscovered for so long seemed due more to humanity's tendency not to see things they didn't want to see, rather than cleverness on the part of Settler's Affairs. — Stacey Jay

Berkshire was built on the eternal verities: basic mathematics, basic horse sense, basic fear, and basic diagnosis of human nature to make predictions regarding human behavior. We stuck to the basics with a certain amount of discipline and it has worked out quite well. — Charlie Munger

If (b) their One is one as indivisible, nothing will have quantity or quality, and so the one will not be infinite, as Melissus says - nor, indeed, limited, as Parmenides says, for though the limit is indivisible, the limited is not.3 But if (c) all things are one in the sense of having the same definition, like 'raiment' and 'dress', then it turns out that they are maintaining the Heraclitean doctrine, (20) for it will be the same thing 'to be good' and 'to be bad', and 'to be good' and 'to be not good', and so the same thing will be 'good' and 'not good', and man and horse; in fact, their view will be, not that all things are one, but that they are nothing; and that 'to be of such-and-such a quality' is the same as 'to be of such-and-such a size'. — Aristotle.

The definition of hell in the legal system is: endless due process and no justice; (in the corporate world) it would be: endless due diligence and no horse sense. — Charlie Munger

It was The Aeneid that had included the fascinating story of the Trojan Horse. Why anyone would accept a gift from a departing, defeated army had made no sense to her then and still did not. But, again, men had made the decision, probably drunk with their victory. Any woman would look at such a gift and wonder why it had been given, and then have someone quickly dispose of it. — Kasey Michaels

Some persons follow the dictates of their conscience only in the same sense in which a coachman may be said to follow the horses he is driving. — Richard Whately

We need to stop excusing mediocre and downright pernicious art, stop 'taking it for what it's worth' as we take our fast foods, our overpriced cars that are no good, the overpriced houses we spend all our lives fixing, our television programs, our schools thrown up like barricades in the way of young minds, our brainless fat religions, our poisonous air, our incredible cult of sports, and our ritual of fornicating with all pretty or even horse-faced strangers. We would not put up with a debauched king, but in a democracy all of us are kings, and we praise debauchery as pluralism. This book is of course no condemnation of pluralism; but it is true that art is in one sense fascistic: it claims, on good authority, that some things are healthy for individuals and society and some things are not. — John Gardner

How's it going today, Riot?" I said. "I'm Gideon."

Nice. Two sentences and I'd already managed to embarrass myself. In front of Daryn and a horse. I hadn't even realized the last part was possible. I continued speaking as I stepped closer. "I'm sure we have a lot in common. You're clearly a stallion in top physical condition. Extremely dangerous. Badass. Impressive looking."

"Wow," Daryn said behind me.

That made me smile, which I needed. I was nervous as all get-out. The muscles in Riot's legs were twitching. His breath lifted in puffs of steam. He had gold eyes - and they hadn't unlocked from mine. He looked like he wanted to eat my head.

"Keep going," Daryn said. "And maybe try to be positive and nice? I think he can sense what you're saying."

Positive, check. Nice, check. Wait - nice?

Shit. Okay. — Veronica Rossi

All that the YMCA's horse and rings really accomplished was to fill me with an ineradicable distaste, not only for Christian endeavor in all its forms, but also for every variety of calisthenics, so that I still begrudge the trifling exertion needs to climb in and out of the bathtub, and hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense. — H.L. Mencken

:No,: Wareska said at once, :we should go back.: She heard the horse laugh softly into her mind.
:Wareska,: he said in amusement, :it is not like you to ever look back.:
:I look back when sense dictates.:
:It is hard for horses to look back. We don't really have shoulders. I guess we look back over our butt?: — Ash Gray

The future is better than the past. Despite the crepe hangers, romanticists, and anti-intellectuals, the world steadily grows better because the human mind, applying itself to environment, makes it better. With hands ... with tools ... with horse sense and science and engineering. — Robert A. Heinlein

I thought you would at least help me retrieve my horse."
He stopped and mumbled under his breath, "If your horse has any sense he'll keep going. — B. J. Daniels

She suddenly saw Wimsey in a new light. She knew him to be intelligent, clean, courteous, wealthy, well-read, amusing and enamored, but he had not so far produced in her that crushing sense of inferiority which leads to prostration and hero-worship. But she now realized that there was, after all, something godlike about him. He could control a horse. — Dorothy L. Sayers

A quarter-horse jockey learns to think of a twenty-second race as if it were occurring across twenty minutes
in distinct parts, spaced in his consciousness. Each nuance of the ride comes to him as he builds his race. If you can do the opposite with deep time, living in it and thinking in it until the large numbers settle into place, you can sense how swiftly the initial earth packed itself together, how swiftly continents have assembled and come apart, how far and rapidly continents travel, how quickly mountains rise and how quickly they disintegrate and disappear. — John McPhee

The theatre demanded of its members stamina, good digestion, the ability to adjust, and a strong sense of humor. There was no discomfort an actor didn't learn to endure. To survive, we had to be horses and we were. — Helen Hayes

Alessandro watched as Luke burrowed his nose in the snow and then shook his small body. "Well, that depends on whether you want a male or a female horse." "Mmm. I tink I want a boy horsie. Girl horsies have babies and dat's too much trouble." Alessandro bit back a laugh. "Male horse it is then. Let's see. My favourite horse's name is Abbott." "A But?" Will asked laughing. "Abbott," Alessandro corrected. "Chimney," Will suddenly decided, stopping. Alessandro blinked in confusion. "I'm sorry, did you say 'Chimney'?" "It make sense," Will assured him. "Santa come down da chimney and he is my pesent, right? So his name be Chimney." "I agree. Quite logical," Alessandro nodded. "Well, dat one ting on my list. Der be more." "Duly noted," he said. — E. Jamie

As he took possession of it, he was overcome by a sense of something like sacred awe. He carefully spread his horse blanket on the ground as if dressing an altar and lay down on it. He felt blessedly wonderful. He was lying a hundred and fifty feet below the earth, inside the loneliest mountain in France - as if in his own grave. Never in his life had he felt so secure, certainly not in his mother's belly. The world could go up on flames out there, but he would not even notice it here. He even began to cry softly. He did not know who to thank for such good fortune. — Patrick Suskind

Be wary of the horse with a sense of humor. — Pam Brown

No chord in populism reverberates more strongly than the notion that the robust common sense of an unstained outsider is the best medicine for an ailing polity. Caligula doubtless got big cheers from the plebs when he installed his horse as proconsul. — Alexander Cockburn

The grass is full of ghosts tonight.' 'The whole campus is alive with them.' They paused by Little and watched the moon rise, to make silver of the slate roof of Dodd and blue the rustling trees. 'You know,' whispered Tom, 'what we feel now is the sense of all the gorgeous youth that has rioted through here in two hundred years.' ...
And what we leave here is more than class; it's the whole heritage of youth. We're just one generation
we're breaking all the links that seemed to bind us her to top-booted and high-stocked generations. We've walked arm and arm with Burr and Light-Horse Harry Lee through half these deep-blue nights.' 'That's what they are,' Tom tangented off, 'deep-blue
a bit of color would spoil them, make them exotic.' Spries, against a sky that's a promise of dawn, and blue light on the slate roofs
it hurts ... rather
' 'Good-by, Aaron Burr,' Amory called toward deserted Nassau Hall, 'you and I knew strange corners of life. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Religion needs a baptism of horse sense. — Billy Sunday