Mules Quotes

• A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once.

  William Faulkner

  Patience, Years, Privilege

  William Faulkner (2011). “Flags in the Dust: The complete text of Faulkner's third novel, which appeared in a cut version as Sartoris”, p.290, Vintage

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• My favorite animal is the mule. He has more horse sense than a horse. He knows when to stop eating - and he knows when to stop working.

  Harry S. Truman

  Horse, Animal, Pet

  Harry S. Truman (1967). “The Quotable Harry S. Truman”, Anderson, S.C. : Droke House, distributed by Grosset & Dunlap

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• A mule has neither pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Pride, Ancestry, Posterity

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• In the world of mules there are no rules.

  Ogden Nash

  Horse, World

  Ogden Nash, Étienne Delessert (1987). “Ogden Nash's zoo”, Stewart, Tabori and Chang

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• There's no education in the second kick of a mule

  Sam Rayburn

  Kicks

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• My mother always told me the best way to learn to deal with a man was to learn to ride a mule. She said they have about equal brains most of the time. Sometimes the mule is smarter.

  Robert Jordan

  Mother, Men, Brain

  Robert Jordan (2016). “The Wheel of Time: Books 1–4”, p.510, Macmillan

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• There is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a mule.

  Mark Twain

  Kicks

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• There's nothing like a pack of mules to give one a sense of entourage.

  Tahir Shah

  Giving, Entourage, Packs

  Tahir Shah (2013). “In Search of King Solomon's Mines, paperback edition”, p.242, Lulu.com

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• Young feller, you will never appreciate the potentialities of the English language until you have heard a Southern mule driver search the soul of a mule.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  War, Appreciate, Southern

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• She was so ugly she could make a mule back away from an oat bin.

  Will Rogers

  Sarcastic, Ugly

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• Personally, I think the best motto for an educational establishment is: 'Or Would You Rather Be a Mule?'

  Terry Pratchett

  Educational, Thinking, Motto

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• In Tennessee where I grew up, there were animals, farms, wagons, mules.

  Tina Turner

  Animal, Tennessee, Wagons

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• If you don't watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite.

  Ken Kesey

  Thinking, Opposites, People

  Ken Kesey (2016). “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, p.107, Hamilton Books

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• The horse and mule live thirty years And never know of wine and beers. The goat and sheep at twenty die Without a taste of scotch or rye. The cow drinks water by the ton And at eighteen is mostly done. The dog at fifteen cashes in Without the aid of rum or gin. The modest, sober, bone-dry hen Lays eggs for noggs and dies at ten. But sinful, ginful, rum-soaked men Survive three-score years and ten. And some of us, though mighty few Stay pickled 'til we're ninety-two.

  Charles Gavan Duffy

  Dog, Horse, Wine

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• The government's like a mule, it's slow and it's sure; it's slow to turn, and it's sure to turn the way you don't want it.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Government, Want, Way

  Ellen Glasgow (2016). “The Voice of the People”, p.213, The Floating Press

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• God has given me a mule-like stubbornness to stick with a difficult problem and the intuitive powers to conceptualize complex hypothetical situations in my mind.

  Albert Einstein

  Mind, Sticks, Problem

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• Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

  Harper Lee

  Sweet, Naps, Sweat

  Harold Bloom, Harper Lee (2010). “Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird”, p.20, Infobase Publishing

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• I don't know how you persist in being so stubborn-" "It's a superpower. I was bitten by a radioactive mule.

  Shannon Hale

  Stubborn, Persist, Know How

  Shannon Hale (2009). “The Actor and the Housewife: A Novel”, p.296, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• My wife called me a mule. She once said, "I didn't marry a man; I married a mule!" I kept thinking about it. It was in the back of my head. I think it makes a good title for an album.

  Tom Waits

  Men, Thinking, Wife

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• If you don't have my army supplied, and keep it supplied, we'll eat your mules up, sir.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  Army, Civil War, Ifs

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• The average man takes life as a trouble. He is in a chronic state of irritation at the whole performance. He does not learn to differentiate between troubles and difficulties, usually, until some real trouble bowls him over. He fusses about pin-pricks until a mule kicks him. Then he learns the difference.

  Herbert Newton Casson

  Life, Real, Learning

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• Particularly when you're dealing with very high ranking people, you know, you have to get their attention, they are used to, by their rank, of having their own way and doing their own thing and when it's necessary to all work together on something, sometimes you have to hit the mule between the eyes of the two by four to get its attention.

  Norman Schwarzkopf

  Eye, Two, People

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• Old muleskinners told how the mules were waiting at the shaft when they arrived each morning. They wanted relief from the heat, deerflies and mosquitoes just like the men.

  Harry Anderson

  Morning, Men, Waiting

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• She would be a new person, she vowed. They said no matter how far a mule travels it can never come back a horse, but she would show them all.

  Junot Diaz

  Horse, Inspiration, Would Be

  Junot Diaz (2008). “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”, p.163, Faber & Faber

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• Creativity itself doesn't care at all about results - the only thing it craves is the process. Learn to love the process and let whatever happens next happen, without fussing too much about it. Work like a monk, or a mule, or some other representative metaphor for diligence. Love the work. Destiny will do what it wants with you, regardless.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Creativity, Destiny, Care

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