A boy is a boy a long time before he knows his alphabet, longer before he has learned to spell, and perhaps several years before he can read distinctly; and yet there are some people who, as soon a they get on a young horse, entirely undressed and untaught, fancy that by beating and spurring they will make him a dressed horse in one morning only. I would feign ask such stupid people whether by beating a boy they would teach him to read without first showing him the alphabet? Sure they would beat him to death before they would make him read.

- Reproduced from The Man Who Listens to Horses (Original source unknown).

"Love means attention, which means looking after the things we love. We call this stable management."

George H. Morris
from The American Jumping Style

Why did this animal that had prospered so in the Colorado desert leave his amiable homeland for Siberia?  There is no answer.  We know that when the horse negotiated the land bridge... he found on the other end an opportunity for varied development that is one of the bright aspects of animal history.  He wandered into France and became the mighty Percheron, and into Arabia, where he developed into a lovely poem of a horse, and into Africa where he became the brilliant zebra, and into Scotland, where he bred selectively to form the massive Clydesdale.  He would also journey into Spain, where his very name would become the designation for gentleman, a caballero, a man of the horse.  There he would flourish mightily and serve the armies that would conquer much of the known world.

~James Michener

A Horseman should know neither fear, nor anger.

~James Rarey

O! for a horse with wings!

~William Shakespeare, Cymbeline

The daughter who won't lift a finger in the house is the same child who cycles madly off in the pouring rain to spend all morning mucking out a stable.

~Samantha Armstrong

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, Henry V

My horse's feet are as swift as rolling thunder
He carries me away from all my fears
And when the world threatens to fall asunder
His mane is there to wipe away my tears.

~Bonnie Lewis

If your horse says no, you either asked the wrong question, or asked the question wrong.

~Pat Parelli

Spending that many hours in the saddle gave a man plenty of time to think.  That's why so many cowboys fancied themselves Philosophers.

~Charles M. Russell