Oh Bernard muttered Ethel this issosudden.No no cried Bernard and taking the bull by both horns he kissed her violently on her dainty face.

-Ashford, Daisy Mary Margaret
  TheYoung Visiters, or Mr Salteena's Plan, ch.9.

You ought to take the bull between the teeth.

-Goldwyn, Sam(uel) originally  Schmuel Gelbfisz
Recalled on his death, 31  Jan1974.

Truth, Sir, is a cow, that will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Of sceptics. Remark, 21  Jul. Quoted in  James Boswell  The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

In time the savage bull sustains the yoke; In time all haggard hawks will stoop to lure; In time small wedges cleave the hardest oak, In time the flint is pierced with softest shower, And she in time will fall from her disdain, And rue the sufferance of your friendly pain.

-Kyd,Thomas
c.1589  The Spanish Tragedy, act 2, sc.1.

John Bull has gone to India And all must pay him heed For histories are there to prove That none of another breed Has had a like inheritance, Or sucked such milk as he, And there's no luck about a house If it lacks honesty. The ghost of Roger Casement Is beating on the door.

-Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)
  'The Ghost of Roger Casement', stanza 3. Collected in New Poems (1938).