Top 50 Anna Sewell Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “It is good people who make good places.”

— Anna Sewell

2. “Do your best, And leave the rest, ‘Twill all come right Some day or night.”

— Anna Sewell

3. “My troubles are over, and I am finally home.”

— Anna Sewell

4. “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.”

— Anna Sewell

5. “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

6. “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.”

— Anna Sewell

7. “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

8. “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

9. “Is it not better,” she said, “to lead a good fashion than to follow a bad one?”

— Anna Sewell

10. “I don’t believe in religion, for I don’t see that your religious people are any better than the rest.”

— Anna Sewell

11. “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

12. “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

13. “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

14. “Hark ye,’said the father, ’a bad-tempered man will never make a good-tempered horse. You’ve not learned your trade yet, Samson.”

— Anna Sewell

15. “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

16. “Oh! if people knew what a comfort to a horse a light hand is...”

— Anna Sewell

17. “What right had they to make me suffer like that?”

— Anna Sewell

18. “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

19. “I am never afraid of what I know.”

— Anna Sewell

20. “This was a little joke of John’s; he used to say that a regular course of “the Birtwick horseballs” would cure almost any vicious horse; these balls, he said, were made up of patience and gentleness, firmness and petting, one pound of each to be mixed up with half a pint of common sense, and given to the horse every day.”

— Anna Sewell

21. “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 and put down for what they are.”

— Anna Sewell

22. “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.”

— Anna Sewell

23. “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

24. “If they strain me up tight, why, let ’em look out! I can’t bear it, and I won’t.”

— Anna Sewell

25. “Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody’s business to interfere when they see it.”

— Anna Sewell

26. “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

27. “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

28. “This horse has got a good master, and he deserves it.”

— Anna Sewell

29. “If you get into the habit of being quick it is just as easy as being slow.”

— Anna Sewell

30. “And as to being quick, why, bless you! That is only a matter of habit; if you get into the habit of being quick, it is just as easy as being slow; easier, I should say; in fact, it don’t agree with my health to be hulking about over a job twice as long as it need take. Bless you! I couldn’t whistle if I crawled over my work as some folks do!”

— Anna Sewell

31. “It was wonderful what a change had come over Joe. John laughed, and said he had grown an inch taller in that week, and I believe he had. He was just as kind and gentle as before, but there was more purpose and determination in all that he did – as if he had jumped at once from a boy into a man.”

— Anna Sewell

32. “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.”

— Anna Sewell

33. “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.”

— Anna Sewell

34. “Willie always speaks to me when he can, and treats me as his special friend. My ladies have promised that I shall never be sold, and so I have nothing to fear; and here my story ends. 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.”

— Anna Sewell

35. “He is called the horse.”

— Anna Sewell

36. “They healed in time, and they forgot the pain, but the nice soft flap, that of course was intended to protect the delicate part of their ears from dust and injury, was gone forever. 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?”

— Anna Sewell

37. “Poor things! I know what sort of treatment they have had. If they are timid, it makes them start or shy; if they are high-mettled, it makes them vicious or dangerous; their tempers are mostly made when they are young. Bless you! they are like children, train ’em up in the way they should go, as the good book says, and when they are old they will not depart from it, if they have a chance, that is.”

— Anna Sewell

38. “We went into the yard through a stone gateway, and John asked for Mr. York.”

— Anna Sewell

39. “Very soon the train came puffing up into the station; then two or three minutes, and the doors were slammed to, the guard whistled, and the train glided away, leaving behind it only clouds of white smoke and some very heavy hearts.”

— Anna Sewell

40. “The only wonder was that he should be in an under situation and not in the place of a head coachman like York;.”

— Anna Sewell

41. “You have saved me more than money can ever pay for. Take this extra half-crown.”

— Anna Sewell

42. “Nineteen next May, sir.”

— Anna Sewell

43. “We have no right to distress any of God’s creatures without a very good reason.”

— Anna Sewell

44. “I have heard the commandments read a great many times and I never noticed that any of them said, “Thou shalt be rich.”

— Anna Sewell

45. “Well, then,” he said, “I hope you are good-tempered; I do not like any one next door who bites.”

— Anna Sewell

46. “Well, I don’t think she does have pleasure, it is just a bad habit.”

— Anna Sewell

47. “Still, there was an anxious look about her eye, by which I knew that she had some trouble.”

— Anna Sewell

48. “To my mind, fashion is one of the wickedest things in the world.”

— Anna Sewell

49. “And soon the dogs were.”

— Anna Sewell

50. “All you can do is keep waiting for your time. There is no use protesting. If you have cruel owners, it’s your bad luck. I wish I could die now. Only that can put an end to all my miseries.”

— Anna Sewell