I just thought I would share this quote with you all, I found it in Lucy Rees' 'The Maze' this morning and it really struck a cord in me...
"They [Horse] have always understood a great deal more than they let on. It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion about them. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever." Douglas Adams
Marie, thankyou for sharing the quote. I love quotes (as you know:-) they often inspire me. The following one makes me to think of you and your special relationship with Crunchie
“The sight of (that pony) did something to me I’ve never quite been able to explain. He was more than tremendous strength and speed and beauty of motion. He set me dreaming.”
Walt Morey
Have been meaning to add to this thread for ages....!
July 15 2003, 1:23 PM
I got this one from the notes section at the back of When Elephants Weep (Masson & McCarthy)
Bertrand Russell: One may say broadly that all the animals that have been carefully observed have behaved so as to confirm the philosophy in which the observer believed before his observations began
I think of this one everytime I hear NH people talking!!! Although it's the same with astronomers and "stellar behaviour"...
And from the main text of the same book I also liked:
[The real problem often targeted by many of the criticisms of anthropomorphism is actually anthropocentrism.] Placing humans at the centre of all interpretation, observation and concern, and dominant men at the centre of that, has led to some of the worst errors in science, whether in astronomy, politics or animal behaviour
And a few others which I've swiped from various peoples email signatures(!).....(and apologies if it's your email I've swiped it from. Please feel free to claim it as I've forgotten where they've all come from..!)
(I feel the need to send this to Monty!!)
"The great tragedy of Science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact." Thomas H. Huxley (1825 - 1895)
"A dog cannot be bad, it can only be a dog."
"Show me a dog that's been trained and trained and trained and still does not obey, and I'll tell you who the slow learner is!"
And this one's for the CT people...
"I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -- Thomas Edison
One of my favourite quotes of the moment is from a book called "Separate lives" by Irving Townsend.. in his essay called "A once again Prince" he talks about rescuing an old horse (Prince)and giving him some time (where Prince flourished) but eventually he had to make the decision to end prince's life. The final paragraphs read as follows:
"We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we would still live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan. The life of a horse, often half our own, seems endless until one day. That day has come and gone for me, and I am once again within a somewhat smaller circle still unable to believe that this evening I will not see Prince within the setting sun, head lowered, eyes half closed, tail a golden fall.
He was and is again a prince to us. I hope he stands proud always, his two new shoes held tight together until it is time to rattle another gate. His summons will not go unheeded"
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilisation surveys the creature through a glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronise them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err.
For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with emotions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings, they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
"The wrong interpretation will still give you useful information - it will reveal a thought pattern or preconveived notion you hold that distorts reality. in order to change those patterns, you first need to be aware they exist"
I think this applies to all aspects of life and reminds us that there is nothing 'wrong' with getting things 'wrong', its all part of the journey.
"We can do no great things - only small things with great love"
Mother Teresa
"All you need is already with you, only you must approach yourself with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors...all I plead with you is this: make love of your self perfect"
"Skills cannot be developed without effort and a practical understanding of what you are doing. Western society in general is impatient - we want things to work now - often believing that if we pay enough money, the skill will be obtained with minimum effort on our part. Many give up before they gain any real benefits, failing to realize why progress is slow or seemingly non-existent. By its very nature, it involves a great deal of patience due to the level of personal development required. Skill in any art cannot be obtained by osmosis. Constant searching is required and I don't mean for the teacher that can offer the supposed short cuts! Search within yourself to gain a clear understanding of your goals, then search for information beyond that of your teacher alone to gain clear clarification and cross-reference. There are no secrets; everything is obtainable by all of us with patience and perseverance."
If you are quick to take offense, then you'll be under the control of those whom you find offensive.
If you are easily angered, then your actions will be dictated by those who anger you.
If you are obsessed by what other people think, then you will be imprisoned by their thoughts.
If you yearn for easy answers and quick solutions, you'll fall prey to people who offer nothing but promises.
If you find the truth too difficult to bear, you'll be enslaved to those who tell you what you want to hear.
When you have the courage to think for yourself, the strength to accept what is, the commitment and discipline to make a difference, then you are free.
You are truly free to live with purpose, joy and fulfillment. Let your life be defined not by your reactions to what others do, say or think, but rather by your own unique vision.
Raise your eyes above the pettiness and follow the path of the greatness that is within you.
--Ralph Marston--
"There are no problems, only the little ego in defense of itself."
"If you talk to animals, they will talk to you and you will know each
other...If you do not talk to them, You will not know them and what you do
not know you will fear. What one fears one destroys"
Was flicking through "Empty Cages" by Tom Regan last night and came across the sentence
"Humaneness is not in the eye of the beholder"
I think that is such an excellent quote, and soooooo applicable to horse training. I get so fed up with people saying that such-and-such a new form of force doesn't hurt....
i have just lost a very special pony yesterday and she taught me so much...
my special quotes are
"The air of heaven is that which blows between a horses ears"
"a horse is the projection of peoples dreams about them selves -strong-powerfull and beautiful and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence" Pam brown
i also love what sir winston churchill once said...
"there is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of man"
"Just because a great many people believe in something is no
guarantee of its truth." – Mahatma Gandhi
And a quote from Paul Belton of Albion Saddlery: at the Classical Riding Club Conference on 26 November, he was aksed, 'When does a piece of tack become a gadget? His reply: ‘When you seek a piece of equipment to solve a problem that you created in the first place, then that equipment becomes a gadget.’
Lesley, when you mentioned your story about the Parelli person criticising you at the CRC conference I thought there must be some great quote to put things back in perspective. And there was! As for the Albion person (sorry, can't remember his name), that's an excellent response - will have to remember that one!
Don't know who said this first - I found it on a forum where it had apparently been someone's screensaver. Applies so well to training with +R/shaping etc
"If you don't have time to do it right, how will you have time to do it over?"
Found thisone from Dr Ulrike Thiele, who was sued a couple of years ago for speaking out frankly against the rollkur method, yet who courageously continues to speak out against it:
'If you have idols, idolism stops people from looking straight and seeing what is happening.'
I posted this on another thread but thought I'd add it here too. Don't know who said it first, but it summed up how I feel about statistics in relation to equine behaviour: "the average human being has one testicle and one breast".
Julie - thought you'd like that one Noticed one of our clients at work has it in her email signature, so I pinched it for mine too. Tempted to put it in a certain forum signature, but it might be the last straw :-/
The heart deceives, because it is never anything but the expression of the minds miscalculations I dont know what the heart is, not I: I only use the word to denote the minds frailties.
-- Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade
- I have a sneaking sympathy with this - anyone else?
Rita
OK, no-one likes the Marquis de Sade. What about JM.Coetzee?
"Let me say it openly: we are surrounded by an enterprise of degradation, cruelty and killing which rivals anything that the Third Reich was capable of, indeed dwarfs it, in that ours is an enterprise without end, self-regenerating, bringing rabbits, rats, poultry, livestock ceaselessly into the world for the purpose of killing them". J.M.Coetzee (Nobel Prize for Literature)
I did like it Rita, although prefer the second, just didnt want to respond without adding quotes to the thread, so here are a few I like:
Those who wish to pet and baby wild animals "love" them. Both those that respect their natures and wish to let them live normal lives, love them more.
Edwin Way Teale
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That's the essence of inhumanity.
George Bernard Shaw
But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.
Plutarch
Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.
Thomas De Quincey
Noticed one of our clients at work has it in her email signature, so I pinched it for mine too. Tempted to put it in a certain forum signature, but it might be the last straw :-/
