Black Beauty

Do you know why this world is as bad as it is? […] it is because people think only about their own business, and won't trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, nor bring the wrong-doer to light.

My troubles are all over, and I am at home; and often before I am quite awake, I fancy I am still in the orchard at Birtwick, standing with my old friends under the apple trees.

If you in the morning

Throw minutes away,

You can't pick them up

In the course of a day.

You may hurry and scurry,

And flurry and worry,

You've lost them forever,

Forever and aye.

My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.

If a thing is right, it can be done, and if it is wrong, it can be done without; and a good man will find a way.

[W]e call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.

To my dear and honoured Mother, whose life, no less than her pen, has been devoted to the welfare of others, this little book is affectionately dedicated.

[T]hey always think they can improve upon nature and mend what God has made.

[I]f they strain me up tight, why, let 'em look out! I can't bear it, and I won't.

God had given men reason, by which they could find out things for themselves, but He had given animals knowledge which did not depend on reason, and which was much more prompt and perfect in its way, and by which they had often saved the lives of men.

I am never afraid of what I know.

[W]e shall all have to be judged according to our works, whether they be towards man or towards beast.

Oh! if people knew what a comfort to horses a light hand is.

[T]here is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham.

The first place that I can well remember, was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Some shady trees leaned over it, and rushes and water-lilies grew at the deep end. Over the hedge on one side we looked into a ploughed field, and on the other we looked over a gate at our master's house, which stood by the roadside; at the top of the meadow was a plantation of fir trees, and at the bottom a running brook overhung by a steep bank.

[A] bad-tempered man will never make a good-tempered horse.

[D]o your best wherever it is, and keep up your good name.