horses: dangerous on both ends and crafty in the middle

Everyone owes nature a death.

We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst; and we saw men die violent deaths as they worked among the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with one another; but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and ours was the glory of work and the joy of living.

Horses are far worse than men for treachery...

Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives
must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

Paying alimony is like feeding hay to a dead horse.

A cavalryman's horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be allowed to know this.

All men must die

neighbour of ours, Mr. Hollworthy, a very able man, is also dead by a fall in the country from his horse, his foot hanging in the stirrup, and his brains beat out.

It is said that the best horses lose when they compete with slower ones and win against better rivals. Undercompensation from the absence of a stressor,inverse hormesis, absence of challenge, degrades the best of the best.

If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all.

In his 2007 book Farewell to Alms, the Scottish-American economist Gregory Clark points out that we can learn a thing or two about our future job prospects by comparing notes with our equine friends. Imagine two horses looking at an early automobile in the year 1900 and pondering their future. “I’m worried about technological unemployment.” “Neigh, neigh, don’t be a Luddite: our ancestors said the same thing when steam engines took our industry jobs and trains took our jobs pulling stage coaches. But we have more jobs than ever today, and they’re better too: I’d much rather pull a light carriage through town than spend all day walking in circles to power a stupid mine-shaft pump.” “But what if this internal combustion engine thing really takes off?” “I’m sure there’ll be new new jobs for horses that we haven’t yet imagined. That’s what’s always happened before, like with the invention of the wheel and the plow.

A goodlookin horse is like a goodlookin woman, he said. They're always more trouble than what they're worth. What a man needs is just one that will get the job done.

There will come a time when everybody will know why, for what purpose, there is all this suffering, and there will be no more mysteries. But now we must live ... we must work, just work!