“A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs.”

— Robert E. Howard

"Beyond the Black River" (1935)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs." by Robert E. Howard?

Robert E. Howard 145

American author 1906–1936

Related quotes

“He was concerned only with the naked fundamentals of life. The warm intimacies of small, kindly things, the sentiments and delicious trivialities that make up so much of civilized men's lives were meaningless to him. A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs. Bloodshed and violence and savagery were the natural elements of the life Conan knew; he could not, and would never, understand the little things that are so dear to civilized men and women.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Beyond the Black River" (1935)

“Literature was not born the day when a boy crying "wolf, wolf" came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying "wolf, wolf" and there was no wolf behind him.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lectures on Literature

Source: Lectures on Literature

“The director is really a watch-dog, and the watch-dog has no right without the knowledge of his master to take a sop from a possible wolf.”

Charles Bowen (1835–1894) English judge

In re North Australian Territory Co. (1891), L. J. Rep. 61 C. D. 135.

“Dog, ounce, bear, and bull,
Wolfe, lion, horse.”

Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544–1590) French writer

Second Week, First Day, Part iii. Compare: "Lion, bear, or wolf, or bull", William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, act ii. sc. 1.
La Seconde Semaine (1584)

“The boy cried "Wolf, wolf!" and the villagers came out to help him.”

Aesop (-620–-564 BC) ancient Greek storyteller

The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf.

“The wolf was smiling at him, and he had never known that a wolf could smile.”

Clifford D. Simak Highway of Eternity

Highway of Eternity (1986)
Context: He stirred again, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, and he was not alone. Across the fire from him sat, or seemed to sit, a man wrapped in some all-enveloping covering that might have been a cloak, wearing on his head a conical hat that dropped down so far it hid his face. Beside him sat the wolf — the wolf, for Boone was certain that it was the same wolf with which he'd found himself sitting nose to nose when he had wakened the night before. The wolf was smiling at him, and he had never known that a wolf could smile.
He stared at the hat. Who are you? What is this about?
He spoke in his mind, talking to himself, not really to the hat. He had not spoken aloud for fear of startling the wolf.
The Hat replied. It is about the brotherhood of life. Who I am is of no consequence. I am only here to act as an interpreter.
An interpreter for whom?
For the wolf and you.
But the wolf does not talk.
No, he does not talk. But he thinks. He is greatly pleased and puzzled.
Puzzled I can understand. But pleased?
He feels a sameness with you. He senses something in you that reminds him of himself. He puzzles what you are.
In time to come, said Boone, he will be one with us. He will become a dog.
If he knew that, said The Hat, it would not impress him. He thinks now to be one with you. An equal. A dog is not your equal...