For Thursday Art Day a selection of wonderful horse quotes with elegant ladies riding side-saddle – a bygone era, all painted by Alfred de Dreaux.

A horse is the projection of peoples’ dreams about themselves – strong, powerful, beautiful – and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence. ~Pam Brown

The essential joy of being with horses is that it brings us in contact with the rare elements of grace, beauty, spirit, and fire. ~Sharon Ralls Lemon

Where in this wide world can man find nobility without pride,
Friendship without envy,
Or beauty without vanity?
Here, where grace is served with muscle
And strength by gentleness confined
He serves without servility; he has fought without enmity.
There is nothing so powerful, nothing less violent.
There is nothing so quick, nothing more patient.
~Ronald Duncan, “The Horse,” 1954

What delight
To back the flying steed, that challenges
The wind for speed! – seems native more of air
Than earth! – whose burden only lends him fire! –
Whose soul, in his task, turns labour into sport;
Who makes your pastime his! I sit him now!
He takes away my breath! He makes me reel!
I touch not earth – I see not – hear not. All
Is ecstasy of motion!
~James Sheridan Knowles, The Love-Chase

He’s of the colour of the nutmeg. And of the heat of the ginger…. he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him; he is indeed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts. ~William Shakespeare, Henry V

The daughter who won’t lift a finger in the house is the same child who cycles madly off in the pouring rain to spend all morning mucking out a stable. ~Samantha Armstrong

Artwork by Alfred De Dreaux from top to bottom

An elegant sidesaddle rider

Amazon

The Amazone

Une amazone enforet

Two ladies posing sidesaddle on their horses

A nobleman and his daughter on horseback