Quotes & Sayings About Horses In War

At the battle of Waterloo, men formed squares into which the wounded were brought for medical care. At the height of the battle, in the madness of the cannonading and death, the riderless horses of the cavalry, the caisson horses of the slaughtered gun crews attempted to penetrate the squares to be saved by the humans. And in the First World War, men subjected to unparalleled mayhem were stricken more by the plight of the horses than anything else. There is a special grief for the innocent caught up in mankind's murderous follies. — Thomas McGuane

Wagons rattling and banging,
horses neighing and snorting,
conscripts marching, each with bow and arrows at his hip,
fathers and mothers, wives and children, running to see them off
so much dust kicked up you can't see Xian-yang Bridge!
And the families pulling at their clothes, stamping feet in anger,
blocking the way and weeping
ah, the sound of their wailing rises straight up to assault heaven.
And a passerby asks, "What's going on?"
The soldier says simply, "This happens all the time.
From age fifteen some are sent to guard the north,
and even at forty some work the army farms in the west.
When they leave home, the village headman has to wrap their turbans for them;
when they come back, white-haired, they're still guarding the frontier.
The frontier posts run with blood enough to fill an ocean,
and the war-loving Emperor's dreams of conquest have still not ended. — Du Fu

That is the way a white man remembers a battle. So many soldiers here, so many there. Such a captain here. Such a lieutenant there. This colonel in one place. That major in another. The horses precisely here, the cannon exactly there. But not an Indian. An Indian remembers where his mother fell bayoneted, or his little brother had his skull smashed, or his big sister cried for mercy and was shot in the mouth. — Will Henry

The royal Mongol women raced horses, commanded in war, presided as judges over criminal cases, ruled vast territories, and sometimes wrestled men in public sporting competitions. They arrogantly rejected the customs of civilized women of neighboring cultures, such as wearing the veil, binding their feet, or hiding in seclusion. — Jack Weatherford

The shock of collision was like the smashing of boulders in the landslide at Nesson. Damen felt the familiar battering shudder, the sudden shift in scale as the panorama of the charge was abruptly replaced by the slam of muscle against metal, of horse and man impacting at speed. Nothing could be heard over the crashing, the roars of men, both sides warping and threatening to rupture, regular lines and upright banners replaced by a heaving, struggling mass. Horses slipped, then regained their footing; others fell, slashed or speared through. — C.S. Pacat

mean that we must mount them on horses in their earliest youth, and when they have learnt to ride, take them on horseback to see war: the horses must not be spirited and warlike, but the most tractable and yet the swiftest that can be had. In this way they will get an excellent view of what is hereafter to be their own business; and if there is danger they have only to follow their elder leaders and escape. I — Plato

Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when entrenched under the enemy's fire, if they have nothing to do, try hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To Pierre all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and some in governmental affairs. "Nothing is trivial, and nothing is important, it's all the same - only to save oneself from it as best one can," thought Pierre. "Only not to see it, that dreadful it! — Leo Tolstoy

Billy asked them in English what it was they wanted, and they at once scolded him in English for the condition of the horses. They made Billy get out of the wagon and come look at the horses. When Billy saw the condition of his means of transportation, he burst into tears. He hadn't cried about anything else in the war. — Kurt Vonnegut

Everyone will have gone then except us, because we're tied to this soil by a roomful of trunks where the household goods and clothing of grandparents are kept, and the canopies that my parenrs' horses used when they came to Macondo, fleeing from the war. We've been sown into this soil by the memory of the remote dead whose bones can no longer be found twenty fathoms under the earth. The trunks have been in the room ever since the last days of the war; and they'll be there this afternoon when we come back from the burial, if that final wind hasn't passed, the one that will sweep away Macondo, its bedrooms full of lizards and its silent people devastated by memories. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

He spoke of his campaigns in the deserts of Mexico and he told them of horses killed under him and he said that the souls of horses mirror the souls of men more closely than men suppose and that horses also love war. Men say they only learn this but he said that no creature can learn that which his heart has no shape to holo — Cormac McCarthy

During the wars of the Empire, while husbands and brothers were in Germany, anxious mothers gave birth to an ardent, pale, and neurotic generation. Conceived between battles, reared amid the noises of war, thousands of children looked about them with dull eyes while testing their limp muscles. From time to time their blood-stained fathers would appear, raise them to their gold-laced bosoms, then place them on the ground and remount their horses. — Alfred De Musset

There whil'st the world prov'd prodigal of breath, the headless trunks lay prostrated in heaps; this field of funerals sacred unto death, did paint out horror in most hideous shapes: whil'st men unhors'd, horses unmast'red, stray'd, some call'd on those whom they most dearly lov'd, some rag'd, some groan'd, some sigh'd, roar'd, promis'd, pray'd, as blows, falls, faintness, pain, hope, anguish mov'd. — William Alexander, 1st Earl Of Stirling

Now the valley cried with anger, "Mount your horses draw your sword." And they killed the mountain people, so they won their just reward. Now they stood beside the treasure, on the mountain dark and red. Turned the stone and looked beneath it. "Peace on earth" was all it said. Go ahead and hate your neighbor,go ahead and cheat a friend. Do it in the name of heaven, you can justify it in the end. There won't be any trumpets blowing come the judgment day. On the bloody morning after one tin soldier rides away. — Dennis Lambert

This was the moment when the 20th century really began, in all its viciousness and bloody-mindedness. Me, I had imagination in spades, though. I saw myself as a corpse, swept into this stream of fools against my will along with thousands, millions of other corpses, and I didn't like it one little bit.
The other guys, still waiting on the platform at the Gare de l'Est, already saw themselves throwing back a well-earned beer on Alexanderplatz.
Only the mothers really knew. They knew the babies in their arms were tomorrow's war orphans, and the cattle cars (8 horses, 40 men) were nothing but rail-mounted coffins joined end to end and headed for military cemeteries. — Jacques Tardi

Tonight we water our horses in the Tennessee River. — Albert Sidney Johnston

War is not two great armies meeting in the clash and frenzy of battle. War is a boy being carried on a stretcher, looking up at God's blue sky with bewildered eyes that are soon to close; war is a woman carrying a child that has been injured by a shell; war is spirited horses tied in burning buildings and waiting for death; war is the flower of a race, battered, hungry, bleeding, up to its knees in filthy water; war is an old woman burning a candle before the Mater Dolorsa for the son she has given. — Mary Roberts Rinehart

The men rode into Beaver Run like two horsemen of the apocalypse, justice on a white horse and war on a red. The few citizens walking through the muddy streets hurried to get out of their path, while those milling on the plank walkways stared as the duo passed.
Danger.
Long and lean, both sat their saddles with the ease of men accustomed to mastering both the beasts beneath them and the world around them. Their dusters hung to the tops of their boots and were covered in trail dust. Their hats, pulled low, cast shadows over their faces. Rifles were mounted to their horses' saddles and each man had a gun strapped to his thigh. — Suzanne Ferrell

We're becoming slaves; the war scatters us in all directions, takes away everything we own, snatches the bread from out of our mouths; let me at least retain the right to decide my own destiny, to laugh at it, defy it, escape it if I can. A slave? Better to be a slave than a dog who thinks he's free as he trots along behind his master. She listened to the sound of men and horses passing by. They don't even realise they're slaves, she said to herself, and I, I would be just like them if a sense of pity, solidarity, the "spirit of the hive" forced me to refuse to be happy. — Irene Nemirovsky

The sun edged up until it caught the first heights of our standards. I saw the raised fist of Jupiter reach for the first rays, folding the light into its majesty so that it blazed with a life all its own.
I raised my hand to join it and the cheer that broke along the line was deeper than the enemy drumbeats, lasted longer, grew louder, and harder. It reached the oncoming cavalry and I saw them check in their advance, saw the horses pitch and stumble as they took the first rise of the hill. — M.C. Scott

The account in the gospel of John says three times that Jesus was angry. One of the words used is the Greek term for "furious indignation" - the word used by Aeschylus to describe war horses rearing up on their hind legs, snorting through their nostrils, and charging into battle. This was the reaction of Jesus of Nazareth when face to face with a loved one's death. The world that God created good and beautiful and whole was now broken and in ruins. In moments Jesus was going to do something, but his first response was outrage - instinctive, blazing outrage. Clearly, death was even worse in his eyes than in ours. — Os Guinness

Caroline leaned forward. "Now explain to me why this is perfectly normal and dressing up in Regency gear is not."
He blinked. "Finley, because the Civil War is history."
"So is Regency England." She laughed, eyes bright. "Just because we're not firing cannons or riding horses doesn't mean it won't be fun. — Mary Jane Hathaway

The entire hospital seemed to go still, watching and waiting, and what the hell was up with Sin and guys on horses anyway? "Well, who is he?"
"War."
Con stared at her. "War. Just ... War. What kind of name is that?" Nope, not jealous at all of muscle-bound handsome guy.
"Yeah, you know, the original War. Second Horseman of the Apocalypse?"
Con nearly swallowed his fucking tongue. Everyone else in the ER scrambled backward. Even Eidolon backed up a step as the guy swung down from the horse. Christ, standing, the guy was damned near seven feet tall.
"Sin," he said in an impossibly deep voice. He approached her, bent to kiss her cheek, and Con bristled.
"Big horse," Con ground out. "Compensating much? — Larissa Ione

The first thing that matters: I am a child of the eighties. I grew up in a neon wonderland of talking horses, compassionate bears, hair that didn't move in a stiff wind, and the constant threat of nuclear war. — Seanan McGuire

In the space of a single year, a crumbling rural village had sprouted an army town, like a great parasitical growth. The former peacetime aspect of the place was barely discernible. The village pond was where the dragoons watered their horses, infantry exercised in the orchards, soldiers lay in the meadows sunning themselves. All the peacetime institutions collapsed, only what was needed for war remained. Hedges and fences were broken or simply torn down for easier access, and everywhere there were large signs giving directions to military traffic. While roofs caved in, and furniture was gradually used up as firewood, telephone lines and electricity cables were installed. Cellars were extended outwards and downwards to make bomb shelters for the residents; the removed earth was dumped in the gardens. The village no longer knew any demarcations or distinctions between thine and mine.
pp. 36-37 — Ernst Junger

Fight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yeomen!
Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!
Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;
Amaze the welkin with your broken staves! — William Shakespeare

Gusts of snow blew in front of the car as he felt his way toward Man o' War Boulevard ... The snow-covered fields made him think of the desert. Black fences rimmed with snow created a grid against the blank, vanished ground. He saw five snow-blanketed horses huddled under a clump of trees ... He was surprised they weren't lolling on feather beds in their climate-controlled barns. Racehorses got better care than some people, he thought. — Bobbie Ann Mason

Texas tips his chin, already smiling at what he's going to say. "There's gonna be horses soon, right? I can't wait. My family trains cuttin' horses. Best in North Texas. I'm guessin' they wouldn't stack up to War's horse." "Probably not. — Veronica Rossi

Ever since World War I, superior force is no longer measured in terms of men or horses, but in the means to wreak destruction. — Saul David

Future generations would be convinced that nothing good could ever have existed in a country that produced such evil. They would think only of these evils. It would be as if these unleashed dark forces had grotesquely marched like devils on dead horses, backward through the gash in the present, and had destroyed the German past too. — Eric Metaxas

He said that war had destroyed the country and that men believe the cure for war is war as the curandero prescribes the serpent's flesh for its bite. He spoke of his campaigns in the deserts of Mexico and he told them of horses killed under him and he said that the souls of horses mirror the souls of men more closely than men suppose and that horses also love war. Men say they only learn this but he said that no creature can learn that which his heart has no shape to hold. His own father said that no man who has not gone to war horseback can ever truly understand the horse and he said that he supposed he wished that this were not so but that it was so. — Cormac McCarthy

Become a master of your intellect as a charioteer masters his horses and you will realize it is not about the war, it is not about fighting or not fighting, it is not about winning or losing, but it is about taking decisions and discovering the truth about yourself. When you do this, there will be no fear, there will be no ego; you will be at peace, even in the midst of what the deluded call war. — Devdutt Pattanaik

Most / of those he interviewed for the science project had to admit they did not hear the cries of the roses / being burned alive in the noonday sun. Like horses, Geryon would say helpfully, / like horses in war. No, they shook their heads./ Why is grass called blades? he asked them. Isn't it because of the clicking? / They stared at him. You should be / interviewing roses not people, said the science teacher. Geryon liked this idea. / The last page of his project / was a photograph of his mother's rosebush under the kitchen window. / Four od the roses were on fire. / They stood up straight and pure on the stalk, gripping the dark like prophets / and howling colossal intimacies / from the back of their fused throats. — Anne Carson

He stood in rain and the storm, watching a demon with his face standing and laughing at him on a chariot run by drunk horses. The storm threw dust into his eyes, while the demon unleashed the horses one after the other at him. — Akshay Vasu

For kilometres on end the road was totally jammed with vehicles drawn up three or four abreast - petrol tankers, ammunition trucks, teams of horses,ambulances. It was impossible to move forwards or back. Russian combat aircraft now arrived in wave after wave, and threw bombs into that unprotected, inextricable mass. This is what hell must be like. — Christopher Duffy

I could not make the war seem real for myself. Even though I had heard about the Nazi bombing of cities in Spain, I couldn't imagine an air attack on unarmed civilians. Remember, there were still horses on the roads of rural Germany at that time. Very few people understood what modern war would be like. — Edith Hahn Beer