you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink

English

Proverb

you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink

Alternative form of you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
- 1874 October, Esther Serle Kenneth, “By a Hair’s Breadth”, in Ballou’s Monthly Magazine, volume XL (238 total), number 4 (238 overall), Boston, Mass.: Thomes & Talbot, […], page 356, column 2:
  “Hush! hush! there is Angel on the piazza. I don’t see,” sinking into a chair, for she had been standing, “how this has come about. I thought Allen—” / “He never cared a straw for me—in that way. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Not that I would leave any stone unturned to get Allen, but it’s of no use, with that Cecile Fay’s beautiful eyes and magnificent hair under his nose every day!”
- 1879 January 2, “Socialistic Stupidity”, in The Cleveland Leader, number 2, Cleveland, Oh.: […] Leader Printing Company […], page 4, column 4:
  Let the Legislature pass a law compelling the State to furnish every man with work, and what good would that do? It has been proved within the last six months that there is employment in Chicago, at fair wages, for all who want work. The State could not make them work. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Unless the State is endowed with the power of working miracles it cannot convert the lazy Socialistic loafer into an industrious citizen.
- 1968, the editors of Look, “[Overheard in Suburbia] Abortionist”, in Suburbia: The Good Life in Our Exploding Utopia, New York, N.Y.: Cowles Education Corporation, →LCCN, page 97:
  Whenever we’re asked, we give them some [contraceptive] pills. We bring it up, as a matter of fact. But, of course, we’ve got no way of knowing if they use them or not. Nothing I can do about that. You know, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.