Stirrups Quotes

• A ranch hand, equivalent of the old gaucho, rides after an ostrich, swinging three-thonged and weighted baleadoras. Note how only the toe of the boot is in the stirrup iron. In old times, the gaucho often rode with only the great toe of the bare foot in a metal ring.

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  Luis Marden

  Hands   Iron   Feet  

  3076

• It is, we believe, Idle to hope that the simple stirrup-pump Can extinguish hell.

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  Henry Reed

  Believe   Simple   Pumps  

  'Chard Whitlow (Mr Eliot's Sunday Evening Postscript)' (1946)

  2237

• Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word," he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone.

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  Walter de La Mare

  Men   Iron   Feet  

  'The Listeners' (1912)

  3871

• In Paris, when certain people see you ready to set your foot in the stirrup, some pull your coat-tails, others loosen the buckle of the strap that you may fall and crack your skull; one wrenches off your horse's shoes, another steals your whip, and the least treacherous of them all is the man whom you see coming to fire his pistol at you point blank.

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  Honore de Balzac

  Horse   Fall   Men  

  Honore de Balzac (2014). “The Atheist's Mass”, p.18, The Floating Press

  1891

• Blind terror drove me on, with my flying stirrups whipping me into a frenzy. With no rider to carry I reached the kneeling riflemen first and they scattered as I came upon them.

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  Michael Morpurgo

  Flying   Kneeling   Firsts  

  Michael Morpurgo (2012). “War Horse”, p.43, Scholastic Inc.

  1384

• [Romans] never made any improvements on the cavalry. And amazingly, when you read the sources, they couldn't make it because stirrups were not known in Europe. For hundreds of years, the Romans couldn't make a cavalry which proved to be extremely effective.

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  Garry Kasparov

  Years   Europe   Improvement  

  508

• He who speaks the truth must keep one foot in the stirrup.

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  Mark Shields

  Feet   Speak   Stirrups  

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4928

• Betwixt the stirrup and the ground Mercy I asked, mercy I found.

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  William Camden

  Mercy   Found   Stirrups  

  'Remains Concerning Britain' (1605) 'Epitaphs'

  5112

• When I was so fatigued that I couldn't move, the excitement of going to the barn and getting my foot in the stirrup would make me crawl out of bed.

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  Ann Romney

  Moving   Feet   Bed  

  "Ann Romney heads to Wales to play up rags-to-riches roots" by Amelia Hill, www.theguardian.com. July 21, 2012.

  2225

• A whole bunch of big technological shocks occurred when Asian innovations - paper, gunpowder, the stirrup, the moldboard plow and so on - came to Europe via the Silk Road.

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  Charles C. Mann

  Europe   Innovation   Paper  

  4667

• I started Pilates. I'm the only guy in there. They plot before I get there: 'How can we make John look ridiculous?' Because every exercise involved my legs up, like I'm in the stirrups or something.

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  John Stamos

  Exercise   Guy   Plot  

  1220