"Flog A Dead Horse"
The first recorded use of the expression with its modern meaning is by John Bright, referring to the Reform Bill of 1867, which called for more democratic representation in Parliament, an issue about which Parliament was singularly apathetic. The Oxford English Dictionary cites The Globe, 1872, as the earliest verifiable use of flogging a dead horse, where someone is said to have "rehearsed that... lively operation known as flogging a dead horse".
Read more about this topic: John Bright
Famous quotes containing the words flog, dead and/or horse:
“You are all fundamentalists with a top dressing of science. That is why you are the stupidest of conservatives and reactionists in politics and the most bigoted of obstructionists in science itself. When it comes to getting a move on you are all of the same opinion: stop it, flog it, hang it, dynamite it, stamp it out.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“—These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished
Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.”
—Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)
“At a tavern hereabouts the hostler greeted our horse as an old acquaintance, though he did not remember the driver.... Every man to his trade. I am not acquainted with a single horse in the world, not even the one that kicked me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)