Anna Sewell - Black Beauty (1877)

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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.

Anna Sewell
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 other animals as well as humans, it is all a sham.

Anna Sewell
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.

Anna Sewell
Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody's business to interfere when they see it.

Anna Sewell
If you get into the habit of being quick it is just as easy as being slow.

Anna Sewell
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.

Anna Sewell
The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond clear water in it. Some shady trees leaned over it, and rushes and water-lilies grew at the deep end.

Anna Sewell
I don't believe in religion, for I don't see that your religious people are any better than the rest.

Anna Sewell
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.

Anna Sewell
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.

Anna Sewell
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.

Anna Sewell
Though I am an old horse, and have seen and heard a great deal, I never yet could make out why men are so fond of this sport; they often hurt themselves, often spoil good horses, and tear up the fields, and all for a hare, or a fox, or a stag, that they could get more easily some other way; but we are only horses, and don't know.

Anna Sewell
Why don't they cut their own children's ears into points to make them look sharp? Why don't they cut 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?

Anna Sewell
Give me the handling of a horse for twenty minutes, and I'll tell you what sort of a groom he has had.

Anna Sewell
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.

Anna Sewell
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.

Anna Sewell
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.

Anna Sewell
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.

Anna Sewell