War Horse Quotes

With the Mongolian horse warfare, I did a lot of research into the Mongol art of war. ~ John Fusco

My first time acting for camera really was for Steven Spielberg in War Horse. I was trained in theater and I was actually working in theater at the time. I had a small role with the Royal Shakespeare Company, which is a huge prestigious theater company back in England. I honestly thought that was as good as it got. ~ Jeremy Irvine

There's a nobility in his eye, a regal serenity about him. Does he not personify all that men try to be and never can be? ~ Michael Morpurgo

The first time we did cavalry charge I was so breathless with excitement I nearly fell off the horse. I actually saw stars in front of my eyes and thought I was going to faint. The second time I had a bit more control but was still giddy with excitement. And the third time I was an emotional wreck. I had to really try hard not to cry. ~ Benedict Cumberbatch

When the Way governs the world, the proud stallions drag dung carriages. When the Way is lost to the world, war horses are bred outside the city. ~ Laozi

There aren't a lot of guys like me left. But I'm a war horse. I've been through it all. And you know something about war horses? Through the sleet, through the snow, they just keep going. ~ Joel Silver

Alas! ... what is it, valiant knight, save an offering of sacrifice to a demon of vain glory, and a passing through the fire of Moloch? What remains to you as a prize of all the blood you have spilled, of all the travail and pain you have endured, of all the tears which your deeds have caused, when death hath broken the strong man's spear, and overtaken the speed of his war-horse? ~ Walter Scott

Tea, pa! said Charlotte, starting at the word like the old war-horse who hears the bugle; and we got down to it. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Blind terror drove me on, with my flying stirrups whipping me into a frenzy. With no rider to carry I reached the kneeling riflemen first and they scattered as I came upon them. ~ Michael Morpurgo

Wherever you are, I will find you and I will bring you home ~ Steven Spielberg

Wake, soldier wake, thy war-horse waits
To bear thee to the battle back;
Thou slumberest at a foeman's gates,
Thy dog would break thy bivouac;
Thy plume is trailing in the dust,
And thy red falchion gathering rust. ~ Thomas Kibble Hervey

The bones of the story of 'War Horse' is a love story. That's what makes it universal. ~ Steven Spielberg

People often tell me how much they love the digital skies that we obviously painted for 'War Horse.' Well, there's not a single sky that we put in through special effects. The skies you see in the movie are the skies that we experienced - but it was definitely challenging at times. ~ Steven Spielberg

If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round them tragic graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among them all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if I shall touch that workman's arm with some ethereal light; if I shall spread a rainbow over his disastrous set of sun; then against all mortal critics bear me out in it, thou just Spirit of Equality, which hast spread one royal mantle of humanity over all my kind! Bear me out in it, thou great Democratic God! who didst not refuse to the swart convict Bunyan, the pale poetic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with doubly hammered leaves of finest gold, the stumped and paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou who didst pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who didst hurl him upon a war horse; who didst thunder him higher than a throne! Thou who, in all thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy selectest champions from the kingly commons; bear me out in it, O God! ~ Herman Melville

I knew the story of 'War Horse' very well. I had read the book even before I did the auditions. I'm a big fan of Michael Morpurgo. ~ Celine Buckens

I ended the war a horse ahead. ~ Nathan Bedford Forrest

To me soldiers had appeared to become younger as the war went on, and Rudy was no exception to this [ ... ]. And like so many of them now he looked, without his helmet, like a child dressed up as a soldier. ~ Michael Morpurgo

Once to swim I sought the sea-side,
There to sport among the billows;
With the stone of many colors
Sank poor Aino to the bottom
Of the deep and boundless blue-sea,
Like a pretty son-bird, perished.
Never come a-fishing, father,
To the borders of these waters,
Never during all thy life-time,
As thou lovest daughter Aino.

Mother dear, I sought the sea-side,
There to sport among the billows;
With the stone of many colors,
Sank poor Aino to the bottom
Of the deep and boundless blue-sea,
Like a pretty song-bird perished.
Never mix thy bread, dear mother,
With the blue-sea's foam and waters,
Never during all thy life-time,
As thou lovest daughter Aino.
Brother dear, I sought the sea-side,
There to sport among the billows;
With the stone of many colors
Sank poor Aino to the bottom
Of the deep and boundless blue-sea,
Like a pretty song-bird perished.
Never bring thy prancing war-horse,
Never bring thy royal racer,
Never bring thy steeds to water,
To the borders of the blue-sea,
Never during all thy life-time,
As thou lovest sister Aino.

Sister dear, I sought the sea-side,
There to sport among the billows;
With the stone of many colors
Sank poor Aino to the bottom
Of the deep and boundless blue-sea,
Like a pretty song-bird perished.
Never come to lave thine eyelids
In this rolling ~ Elias Lönnrot

When he smelled battle afar off, Winston Churchill resembled the war horse in Job who turned not back from the sword, but 'paweth in the valley and saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha.' He was the only British minister to have a perfectly clear conviction of what Britain should do and to act upon it without hesitation. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

Four things greater than all things are Women and horses and power and War. ~ Rudyard Kipling

Marry someone who flatters you. Because I've written 80 books since 'War Horse' but when my wife reads one, all she says is, 'It's quite good, but it's not as good as 'War Horse,' is it?' ~ Michael Morpurgo

May we all co-operate and join this war on pirates, ~ Jackie Chan

I tried to go to Kosovo to establish a statue to commemorate those who died during the wars, and to discuss moving on, so we could move into a new era. But I was banned from there. ~ Ivica Dacic

Another result of the War of 1812 was the loss of part of our history. As historian Bruce Johansen put it, "A century of learning [from Native Americans] was coming to a close. A century and more of forgetting--of calling history into service to rationalize conquest--was beginning." After 1815 American Indians could no longer play what sociologists call the role of conflict partner--an important other who must be taken into account--so Americans forgot that Natives had ever been significant in our history. Even terminology changed: until 1815 the word Americans had generally been used to refer to Native Americans; after 1815 it meant European Americans. ~ James W. Loewen

There is little to compare with the thrill of standing next to the creature in the winner's enclosure avoiding his hooves and receiving the congratulations of the press, your trainer and friends who backed it. What makes the experience so satisfying is that you, the owner, have had absolutely nothing to do with the horse winning. ~ Robert Morley

A defensive referendum is for avoiding war and to help keep the Taiwanese people free of fear. ~ Chen Shui-bian

Thus commerce, though in itself a moral nullity, has had a considerable influence in tempering the human mind ... he trades with the same countries ... (that he) would have gone to war with. ~ Thomas Paine

Kai whirled around and his face was sadowed by the angle of the sun. Still, she knew his tone. Anger. "What's so funny? That our project has been set back several says? That we're stuck here longer? That you take a little spill from a horse and everyone wants to rearrange the world so you don't suffer a moment of inconvenience?"
"No," she said, and her voice was even. "That I would wait a month in agony just to hear you insult me. I'm a miserable girl indeed, don't you think? ~ Diana Peterfreund

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

WELL, THAT went well. Not.
Remi all but ran out of here. Maybe I shouldn't have pushed, but damn it to the pit and back, the scent of his desire was driving me mad. He wanted me. I wanted him. Neither of us wanted to bottom, so how the hell was that going to work?
Okay, to be fair, I'd never tried it. It's just… the whole dynamics of bottoming made me uncomfortable. Allowing a man to top me meant I'd have to give up control, and that was hard for me. Especially for me.
I knew being a bottom didn't necessarily mean a man was submissive, either in the bedroom or in everyday life. It didn't make him less of a man. Likewise, being a top didn't mean a man was inclined to be dominant in his interactions with others.
It didn't make him more of a man. I got that. I really did… but. But I knew myself well enough to know I couldn't just let anyone into my
body. It wasn't all about the fear of being penetrated, but that was some of it. It's why I took time to open my partner up. To get him riled up and desperate.
What was the point of sex if it didn't feel good? Then, of course, there were the usual perceptions: big, muscular black man… of course he'd only top. Of course he had to be hung like a horse too. I hated it when guys talked about me as if I were nothing more than a big black cock. ~ M.A. Church

All the horrors of war are soon forgotten in the pomp and circumstance of show and parade. ~ James Henry Gooding

There is a whole world that I see and others don't. I can talk to aliens during my dreams, be awakened by dead people, and then see a demon sitting right in front of me in a coffee shop during the day, and this demon will be talking to me too through the mind of a weak soul, provoking, in front of others and telepathically. Nobody can see these things except me. And I can't say it's easy to live such life. It often seems to others that I'm super smart but actually I'm just seeing more realities that they can or ever will, and all the time. It makes me feel exhausted, it makes me feel apart and isolated. I didn't choose this war, I didn't choose this life. I'm just part of it since I was born. ~ Robin Sacredfire

The growing spirit of kindliness and reconciliation between the North and South after the frightful differences of a generation ago ought to be a source of deep congratulation to all, and especially to those whose mistreatment caused the war; but if that reconciliation is to be marked by the industrial slavery and civic death of those same black men, with permanent legislation into a position of inferiority, then those black men, if they are really men, are called upon by every consideration of patriotism and loyalty to oppose such a course by all civilized methods, even though such opposition involves disagreement with Mr. Booker T. Washington. We have no right to sit silently by while the inevitable seeds are sown for a harvest of disaster to our children, black and white. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

It's time for fathers to war for their kids more than the culture wars for your kids. ~ Lou Engle

Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers. ~ R.F. Kuang

This country of ours has committed the most serious act of aggression in its history by engaging in a war of aggression without a declaration of war by Congress. ~ Ramsey Clark

By interviewing at least one veteran, you can preserve memories that otherwise might be lost. My uncle was a downed fighter pilot and P.O.W. in World War II, and I am looking forward to recording his story for inclusion in the project. ~ Spencer Bachus

There is a relentless war between good and evil which has to be fought whether one likes it or not. ~ Radhika Mundra

Mind you, I cannot swear that my story is true. It may have been a dream; or worse, a symptom of some severe mental disorder. But I believe it is true. After all, how are we to know what things there are on earth? Strange monstrosities still exist, and foul, incredible perversions. Every war, each new geographical or scientific discovery, brings to light some new bit of ghastly evidence that the world is not altogether the same place we fondly imagine it to be. Sometimes peculiar incidents occur which hint of utter madness.

How can we be sure that our smug conceptions of reality actually exist? To one man in a million dreadful knowledge is revealed, and the rest of us remain mercifully ignorant. There have been travelers who never came back, and research workers who disappeared. Some of those who did return were deemed mad because of what they told, and others sensibly concealed the wisdom that had so horribly been revealed. Blind as we are, we know a little of what lurks beneath our normal life. There have been tales of sea serpents and creatures of the deep; legends of dwarfs and giants; records of queer medical horrors and unnatural births. Stunted nightmares of men's personalities have blossomed into being under the awful stimulus of war, or pestilence, or famine. There have been cannibals, necrophiles, and ghouls; loathsome rites of worship and sacrifice; maniacal murders, and blasphemous crimes. When I think, then, of what I saw and heard, and compare it with ~ Robert Bloch

And he said that he didn't want to have a war or anything like that again. ~ Samantha Smith

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

W. Bush, this man is a war criminal, and we will see that he is brought to trial. ~ Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

Live for nothing die for something!! ~ Rambo

I wanted, I told her, to lie under the stars and smell different breezes. I wanted to drink different waters, feel different heats. Stand with my comrades atop the ruin of old ideas. Plant my boot and steel my eye and not run.
I said all this to my dead mother, spoke it down through the dirt: there was a conflagration to come; I wanted to lend it my spark. ~ Laird Hunt

Either war is obsolete, or men are. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

What I do know is that Charlie Hebdo cartoonists have been converted into the closest thing the West has to religious-like martyrs in the war against radical Islam, which means that anything short of pure reverence for them generates tribal rage and vilification. ~ Glenn Greenwald

Among those dazzled by the Administration team was Vice-President Lyndon Johnson. After attending his first Cabinet meeting he went back to his mentor Sam Rayburn and told him with great enthusiasm how extraordinary they were, each brighter than the next, and that the smartest of them all was that fellow with the Stacomb on his hair from the Ford Motor Company, McNamara. "Well, Lyndon," Mister Sam answered, "you may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I'd feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once." It is my favorite story in the book, for it underlines the weakness of the Kennedy team, the difference between intelligence and wisdom, between the abstract quickness and verbal fluency which the team exuded, and the true wisdom, which is the product of hard-won, often bitter experience. Wisdom for a few of them came after Vietnam. ~ David Halberstam

Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought! ~ Helen Keller

Agitate him and ascertain the pattern of his movement. ~ Sun Tzu

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

Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely-crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, and slums to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command in control, no army and calls it a war. ~ Noam Chomsky

For war to man, like childbirth to women, is simplifying in its emotions and activities. All the real problems of life can be put aside while the one thing is done and little thought is needed to do it ... His hatreds can be expressed without censure, he can let his emotions run free, he can behave as dramatically, as heroically as he likes, and no one laughs at him. It is almost impossible for a man to behave heroically in the cool and ordinary times of peace. But in war anything is allowed him, he is praised and applauded and made much of, as women are excused and allowed for in pregnancy. ~ Pearl S. Buck

In the water-thickets, the path wound tortuously between umber iron-bogs, albescent quicksands of aluminum and magnesium oxides, and sumps of cuprous blue or permanganate mauve fed by slow, gelid streams and fringed by silver reeds and tall black grasses. The twisted, smooth-barked boles of the trees were yellow-ochre and burnt orange; through their tightly woven foliage filtered a gloomy, tinted light. At their roots grew great clumps of multifaceted translucent crystal like alien fungi.

Charcoal grey frogs with viridescent eyes croaked as the column floundered between the pools. Beneath the greasy surface of the water unidentifiable reptiles moved slowly and sinuously. Dragonflies whose webby wings spanned a foot or more hummed and hovered between the sedges: their long, wicked bodies glittered bold green and ultramarine; they took their prey on the wing, pouncing with an audible snap of jaws on whining, ephemeral mosquitoes and fluttering moths of april blue and chevrolet cerise.

Over everything hung the heavy, oppressive stench of rotting metal. After an hour, Cromis' mouth was coated with a bitter deposit, and he tasted acids. He found it difficult to speak. While his horse stumbled and slithered beneath him, he gazed about in wonder, and poetry moved in his skull, swift as the jewelled mosquito-hawks over a dark slow current of ancient decay. ~ M. John Harrison

Every day, almost as many men are killed at work as were killed during the average day in Vietnam. For men, there are, in essence, three male-only drafts: the draft of men to all the wars; the draft of Everyman to unpaid bodyguard; the draft of men to all the hazardous jobs or 'death professions. ~ Warren Farrell

Consider, for example, and you will find that almost all the transactions in the time of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. You there find marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness, death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride, suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others, newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing far the consulship and for the kingdom; yet all these passed away, and are nowhere. ~ Marcus Aurelius

At this point, I can no longer avoid setting out, in an initial, provisional statement, my own hypothesis about the origin of "bad conscience." It is not easy to get people to attend to it, and it requires them to consider it at length, to guard it, and to sleep on it. I consider bad conscience the profound illness which human beings had to come down with, under the pressure of the most fundamental of all the changes which they experienced - that change when they finally found themselves locked within the confines of society and peace. Just like the things water animals must have gone though when they were forced either to become land animals or to die off, so events must have played themselves out with this half-beast so happily adapted to the wilderness, war, wandering around, adventure - suddenly all its instincts were devalued and "disengaged."

From this point on, these animals were to go on foot and "carry themselves"; whereas previously they had been supported by the water. A terrible heaviness weighed them down. In performing the simplest things they felt ungainly. In dealing with this new unknown world, they no longer had their old leader, the ruling unconscious drives which guided them safely. These unfortunate creatures were reduced to thinking, inferring, calculating, bringing together cause and effect, reduced to their "consciousness," their most impoverished and error-prone organ! I believe that on earth there has never been such a feeling of misery, s ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

In Shanghai, there were several pro-right circles of former officers. They realized that the Great War and European revolutions were a direct consequence of rotten liberalism. Words like order, family, discipline and duty didn't mean anything anymore. Civil liberties, so dear to Nina Kupina and people like her, resulted in monstrous egotism and total moral degradation: I do what I want and don't give a damn about others. ~ Elvira Baryakina

Funny how to celebrate peace we seem to want to simulate war. ~ Anthony Doerr

You have left too much of yourself in this land for it not to be yours. I, too, will always be yours, for you have left too much of yourself with me for it to be otherwise. ~ Nicholas Proffitt

In some ways, the '60s were a reaction to the '50s and the intensity of the Cold War. ~ Tariq Ali