Careful Words

horse (n.)

horse (v.)

horse (adv.)

horse (adj.)

Anger is like

A full-hot horse, who being allow'd his way,

Self-mettle tires him.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VIII. Act i. Sc. 1.

  I have peppered two of them: two I am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face; call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward: here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me—

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.

Set the cart before the horse.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. vii.

  The first favourite was never heard of, the second favourite was never seen after the distance post, all the ten-to-oners were in the rear, and a dark horse which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.

Benjamin Disraeli (Earl Beaconsfield) (1805-1881): The Young Duke. Book i. Chap. v.

Give me another horse: bind up my wounds.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 3.

The grey mare is the better horse.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. iv.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,

Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Locksley Hall. Line 49.

No man ought to looke a given horse in the mouth.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. v.

  A little neglect may breed mischief: for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790): Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.

  Nothing made the horse so fat as the king's eye.

Plutarch (46(?)-120(?) a d): Of the Training of Children.

A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 4.

My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 3.

I saw them go: one horse was blind,

The tails of both hung down behind,

Their shoes were on their feet.

James Smith (1775-1839): Rejected Addresses. The Baby's Début.

  This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Good-Natured Man. Act i.

  The ass will carry his load, but not a double load; ride not a free horse to death.

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. lxxi.

A kick that scarce would move a horse

May kill a sound divine.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Yearly Distress.

A short horse is soone currid.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.

  I am sick as a horse.

Laurence Sterne (1713-1768): Tristram Shandy (orig. ed.). Vol. vii. Chap. xi.

There's something in a flying horse,

There's something in a huge balloon.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Peter Bell. Prologue. Stanza 1.

While the grasse groweth the horse starveth.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.

He doth nothing but talk of his horse.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2.

That which is now a horse, even with a thought

The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,

As water is in water.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 14.

  The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent, into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent, flings himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid twenty-two per cent, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death.

Sydney Smith (1769-1845): Review of Seybert's Annals of the United States, 1820.

A man may well bring a horse to the water,

But he cannot make him drinke without he will.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.

Perish that thought! No, never be it said

That Fate itself could awe the soul of Richard.

Hence, babbling dreams! you threaten here in vain!

Conscience, avaunt! Richard's himself again!

Hark! the shrill trumpet sounds to horse! away!

My soul's in arms, and eager for the fray.

Colley Cibber (1671-1757): Richard III. (altered). Act v. Sc. 3.

  The horseleech hath two daughters, crying, Give, give.

Old Testament: Proverbs xxx. 15.

by simon sarris • about