You can lead a horse to the water but you can't make it drink
Meaning: You can give someone the opportunity to do something, but in the end people, like horses, will only do what they want.
Example: Ram has got all the job applications but he hasn't filled them up. You can lead a horse to the water but you can’t make it drink, can you?
Origin: The saying was recorded as early as 1175 in Old English Homilies.
If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride
Meaning: If wishing could make things happen, then even the most destitute people would have everything they wanted.
Example: Student 1 – I wish I had that new camera phone. Student 2 - If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.
Origin: A version of the expression appeared in the published works of William Camden in the 17th century. Other versions also exist, including: “If wishes were buttercakes, beggars might bite” and “If wishes were thrushes, then beggars would eat birds.”
Wild horses couldn't drag me
Meaning: Nothing could induce or persuade a person to go somewhere or do something he/she doesn't want to.
Example: Wild horses couldn't drag me to that school.
Origin: This idiom originated in the first half of the 1800s. It's always in the negative form and is believed to have replaced wild horses couldn't draw it from me, referring to the medieval torture of using horses to stretch a prisoner and thereby force a confession from him/her.
