Emulation adds its spur. [ Lucan ]
Spur not a free horse to death. [ Proverb ]
Art needs no spur beyond itself. [ Victor Hugo ]
Vanity is often the unseen spur. [ Thackeray ]
There is chance in a cock's spur. [ Proverb ]
Laziness calls for whip and spur. [ Proverb ]
A good horseman wants a good spur. [ Proverb ]
Bravery is often too sharp a spur. [ Kossuth ]
A dull ass near home needs no spur. [ Proverb ]
Opposition is the very spur of love. [ Smollett ]
Necessity is often the spur to genius. [ Balzac ]
The noblest spur unto the sons of fame.
Is thirst of honour. [ John Hall ]
They that drive away time spur a free horse. [ Robert Mason ]
Reason lies between the spur and the bridle. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
A spur in the head is worth two in the heels. [ Proverb ]
Who would ever care to do brave deed,
Or strive in virtue others to excel.
If none should yield him his deserved meed
Due praise, that is the spur of doing well?
For if good were not praised more than ill,
None would choose goodness of his own free will. [ Spenser ]
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise,
(That last infirmity of noble minds,)
To scorn delights and live laborious days. [ Milton ]
It is the bridle and spur that makes a good horse. [ Proverb ]
Difficulties spur us whenever they do not check us. [ Charles Reade ]
Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. [ Rousseau ]
Genius may at times want the spur, but it stands as often in need of the curb. [ Longinus ]
Some kind of pace may be got out of the veriest jade by the near prospect of oats; but the thoroughbred has the spur in his blood. [ Lowell ]
When you introduce into our schools a spirit of emulation, you have present the keenest spur admissible to the youthful intellect. [ Horace Mann ]
The impulse to perform a worthy action often springs from our best nature, but is afterwards tainted by the spur of selfishness or sinister interest. [ Emile Souvestre ]
Does the man live who has not felt this spur to action, in a more or less generous spirit? Emulation lives so near to envy that it is sometimes difficult to establish the boundary-lines. [ Henry Giles ]
Nobility of birth does not always ensure a corresponding nobility of mind; if it did, it would always act as a stimulus to noble actions; but it sometimes acts as a clog, rather than a spur. [ Colton ]
Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears otherwise gives advantage to the danger; it is less folly not to endeavor the prevention of the evil thou fearest than to fear the evil which thy endeavor cannot prevent. [ Quarles ]