“Never tease an old dog; he might have one bite left.”
Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love
Source: Time Enough for Love
As quoted in "A Beautiful Child" in Music for Chameleons (1980) by Truman Capote
“Never tease an old dog; he might have one bite left.”
Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love
Source: Time Enough for Love
“The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.”
Oliver Goldsmith book The Vicar of Wakefield
Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 17, An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, st. 8.
Giovanni Boccaccio book The Decameron
Essere la natura de' motti cotale, che essi come la pecora morde deono cosi mordere l'uditore, e non come 'l cane: percio che, se come cane mordesse il motto, non sarebbe motto, ma villania.
Sixth Day, Third Story
The Decameron (c. 1350)
“The dog won't bite if you beat Him with a bone”
Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor
"Lowside of the Road", Mule Variations (1999).
“Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them.”
Diogenes of Sinope (-404–-322 BC) ancient Greek philosopher, one of the founders of the Cynic philosophy
Stobaeus, iii. 13. 44
Quoted by Stobaeus
“In the law of torts there is the maxim: Every dog has one free bite.”
John Brooks (writer) (1920–1993) American writer
Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Variant: If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.