Here are the 37 best handpicked quotes from “Black Beauty” by Anna Sewell:
From “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.” to “Do your best wherever it is, and keep up your good name.”
So if you want the best quotes from “Black Beauty,” then you’re in the right place.
Let’s jump right in!
My Favorite “Black Beauty” Quote
#1
“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.”
— Black Beauty
With all the injustice happening around the globe today, this quote resonates deeply with me as it serves as a poignant reminder of my moral obligation, one that I can’t always fulfill due to various reasons like fear and indifference.
I can feel the urgency from the author while she expresses that having the grit to take action when someone is taken advantage of leads to an active and positive impact on people who experience injustice.
Saying that we despise people who take advantage of other’s weaknesses but failing to act upon cruelty around us does more harm than the act of cruelty itself.
Best Handpicked Quotes From “Black Beauty” by Anna Sewell
#2
“If they strain me up tight, why, let ‘em look out! I can’t bear it, and I won’t.”
— Black Beauty
#3
“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.”
— Black Beauty
#4
“I hope you will grow up gentle and good, and never learn bad ways; do your work with a good will, lift your feet up well when you trot, and never bite or kick even in play.”
— Black Beauty
#5
“I said, ‘I have heard people talk about war as if it was a very fine thing.’
‘Ah!’ said [Captain], ‘I should think they never saw it. No doubt it is very fine when there is no enemy, when it is just exercise and parade, and sham-fight. Yes, it is very fine then; but when thousands of good brave men and horses are killed, or crippled for life, it has a very different look.’
‘Do you know what they fought about?’ said I.
‘No,’ he said, ‘that is more than a horse can understand, but the enemy must have been awfully wicked people, if it was right to go all that way over the sea on purpose to kill them.”
— Black Beauty
#6
“Oh! if people knew what a comfort to a horse a light hand is…”
— Black Beauty
#7
“They always think they can improve upon Nature and mend what God has made.”
— Black Beauty
#8
“There 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—all a sham, James, and it won’t stand when things come to be turned inside out.”
— Black Beauty
#9
“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-doers to light… 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.”
— Black Beauty
#10
“He said cruelty was the devil’s own trade-mark, and if we saw any one who took pleasure in cruelty we might know who he belonged to, for the devil was a murderer from the beginning, and a tormentor to the end. On the other hand, where we saw people who loved their neighbors, and were kind to man and beast, we might know that was God’s mark.”
— Black Beauty
#11
“I was quite happy in my new place, and if there was one thing that I missed, it must not be thought I was discontented; all who had to do with me were good, and I had a light airy stable and the best of food. What more could I want? Why, liberty!”
— Black Beauty
#12
“I wouldn’t vex our people for anything; I love them, I do.”
— Black Beauty
#13
“To my mind, fashion is one of the wickedest things in the world.”
— Black Beauty
#14
“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.”
— Black Beauty
#15
“I have heard men say that seeing is believing; but I should say that feeling is believing; for much as I had seen before, I never knew till now the utter misery of a cab-horse’s life.”
— Black Beauty
#16
“Why don’t they cut their own children’s ears into points to make them look sharp? Why don’t they cut the end off their noses to make them look plucky? One would be just as sensible as the other. What right have they to torment and disfigure God’s creatures?”
— Black Beauty
#17
“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 plowed 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 grove of fir trees, and at the bottom a running brook overhung by a steep bank.”
— Black Beauty
#18
“To my dear and honored Mother, whose life, no less than her pen, has been devoted to the welfare of others, this little book is affectionately dedicated.”
— Black Beauty
#19
″‘Tis a mockery to tell a man that he must not overwork his horse, for when a beast is downright tired there’s nothing but the whip that will keep his legs a-going; you can’t help yourself—you must put your wife and children before the horse; the masters must look to that, we can’t. I don’t ill-use my horse for the sake of it; none of you can say I do. There’s wrong lays somewhere—never a day’s rest, never a quiet hour with the wife and children. I often feel like an old man, though I’m only forty-five.”
— Black Beauty
#20
“If we could act a little more according to common sense, and a good deal less according to fashion, we should find many things work easier.”
— Black Beauty
#21
“Work and I are very good friends; I never was afraid of work yet.”
— Black Beauty
#22
“It is good people who make good places.”
— Black Beauty
#23
“We 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.”
— Black Beauty
#24
“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 friends under the apple trees.”
— Black Beauty
#25
“We shall all have to be judged according to our works, whether they be towards man or towards beast.”
— Black Beauty
#26
“I hope you will fall into good hands, but a horse never knows who may buy him, or who may drive him.”
— Black Beauty
#27
“Good Luck is rather particular who she rides with, and mostly prefers those who have got common sense and a good heart; at least that is my experience.”
— Black Beauty
#28
“They’ll soon take you away, and I shall lose the only friend I have, and most likely we shall never see each other again. ‘Tis a hard world!”
— Black Beauty
#29
“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.”
— Black Beauty
#30
“My troubles are over, and I am finally home.”
— Black Beauty
#31
“Now look, for instance, at the way they serve dogs, cutting off their tails to make them look plucky, and shearing up their pretty little ears to a point to make them look sharp.”
— Black Beauty
#32
“It seems that horses have no relations; at least, they never know each other after they are sold.”
— Black Beauty
#33
“We horses must take things as they come, and always be contented and willing so long as we are kindly used.”
— Black Beauty
#34
“She’ll be as good as Black Beauty by and bye. Kindness is all the physic she wants, poor thing!”
— Black Beauty
#35
“I shall miss you very much, James, but we shall pull through, and there’s nothing like doing a kindness when ‘tis put in your way, and I am glad I can do it.”
— Black Beauty
#36
“Only ignorance! only ignorance! how can you talk about only ignorance? Don’t you know that it is the worst thing in the world, next to wickedness? — and which does the most mischief heaven only knows. If people can say, ‘Oh! I did not know, I did not mean any harm,’ they think it is all right.”
— Black Beauty
#37
“Do your best wherever it is, and keep up your good name.”
— Black Beauty