You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
CulturalExample Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It's said that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
From BBC
“You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,” he told Talking Points Memo.
From MSNBC
“If you won’t listen, that’s on you. You have potential to do so much more, go so much further. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, right?”
From Literature
As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
From US News
But as the old saying from my home state of Wyoming goes: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
From Slate
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
