Quotes about dog (1272 quotes, page 2) | Quotes of famous people

“He was breakfasting in the marketplace, and the bystanders gathered round him with cries of "dog." "It is you who are dogs," cried he, "when you stand round and watch me at my breakfast."”

Diogenes of Sinope (-404–-322 BC) ancient Greek philosopher, one of the founders of the Cynic philosophy

Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 61
Quoted by Diogenes Laërtius

Dogs

“From my reading of Gandhi I had learned how some people in India regard eating cow as unspeakably repulsive. I realized I felt the same way about cats and dogs: I could never eat them. Were cows so different from cats and dogs that there were two moral standards, one that applies to cows, another that applies to cats and dogs? Were pigs so different? Were any of the animals I ate so different?”

Tom Regan book Empty Cages

Source: Empty Cages (2004), Ch. 2

People , Dogs , Way , Cats

“It came as a tremendous surprise, for in his student days Einstein had been a lazy dog… He never bothered about mathematics at all.”

Hermann Minkowski (1864–1909) German mathematician and physicist

as quoted in a conversation with Max Born about the development of the theory of relativity, by Carl Seelig, Albert Einstein: A Documentary Biography (1956)

Dogs , Mathematics

“I opened my eyes
While you were kissing me once more than once,
And you looked as sincere as a dog.
Just as sincere as a dog does,
When it's the food on your lips with which it's in love.”

Fiona Apple (1977) singer-songwriter, musician

Parting Gift
Song lyrics, Extraordinary Machine (2005)

Love , Food , Dogs , Kiss

“The man changed position, turned his back on the wardrobe blocking the door and let his right arm slide down toward the side on which the dog is lying. A minute later, he was awake. He was thirsty. He turned on his bedside light, got up, shuffled his feet into the slippers which were, as always, providing a pillow for the dog's head, and went into the kitchen. Death followed him. The man filled a glass with water and drank it. At this point, the dog appeared, slaked his thirst in the water-dish next to the back door and then looked up at his master. I suppose you want to go out, said the cellist. He opened the door and waited until the animal came back. A little water remained in his glass. Death looked at it and made an effort to imagine what it must be like to feel thirsty, but failed. She would have been equally incapable of imagining it when she'd had to make people die of thirst in the desert, but at the time she hadn't even tried. The dog returned, wagging his tail. Let's go back to sleep, said the man. They went into the bedroom again, the dog turned around twice, then curled up into a ball. The man drew the sheet up to his neck, coughed twice and soon afterward was asleep again. Sitting in her corner, death was watching. Much later, the dog got up from the carpet and jumped onto the sofa. For the first time in her life, death knew what it felt like to have a dog on her lap.”

José Saramago book Death with Interruptions

Source: Death with Interruptions (2005), p. 172

Life , Death , People , Dogs

“This place is hell. They herd you around like cattle; they order you around like dogs; they work you like horses; and they feed you like hogs.”

James Jones (1921–1977) American author

Letter after joining the Army (1939), quoted by Peggy Noonan in "From 'Eternity' to Here" in The Wall Street Journal (25 May 2006) http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110008422

Dogs , Hell , Horse

“I love animals, but I hadn’t had a pet since I was a kid. I recently got a dog and he’s not only made me a happier girl—he’s made me much more sympathetic to animal rights. I look at my beautiful dog and think, “Of course I’d never eat him or skin him for his fur, so why would I be okay with eating a cow or wearing a cheetah?” It’s just not right. It’s a contradiction. … I don’t think you can force people to change their attitudes, but you can help to educate them and to lead by example. … There are way too many amazing faux fur options out there for people to still be wearing real fur. I want people to know that there are options; that killing a poor animal and wearing it isn’t cool. But respecting all life forms is cool. Very cool.”

Eva Mendes (1974) American actress

Love , Life , People , Education

“A dog barks and stands at bay if he sees any one assault his master. I should be indeed remiss, if, seeing the truth of God thus attacked, I should remain dumb, without giving one note of warning.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Letter 130 (to the Queen of Navarre), 28 April, 1545.

God , Truth , Dogs

“[On why criminals rob nice-looking houses] You come up on a house where the grass is this tall, and there's a dog chained to the clothesline, and a motor swinging in the tree, buddy, that's a house where a gun lives! And you want to find out what kind it is, just crawl through the window after dark.”

Jeff Foxworthy (1958) American stand-up comedian

Totally Committed (1998)

Dogs , Tree , Grass , Housing

“I have seen it stated that no expert is quick enough to run over a dog; that a dog is always able to skip out of his way. I think that that may be true; but I think that the reason he couldn't run over the dog was because he was trying to. I did not try to run over any dog. But I ran over every dog that came along.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"Taming the Bicycle" (1917)

Dogs , Way , Thinking

“Twould ring the bells of Heaven
The wildest peal for years,
If Parson lost his senses
And people came to theirs,
And he and they together
Knelt down with angry prayers
For tamed and shabby tigers
And dancing dogs and bears,
And wretched, blind, pit ponies,
And little hunted hares.”

Ralph Hodgson (1871–1962) British writer

"The Bells of Heaven", p. 25.
Poems (1917)

People , Dogs , Sense , Dance

“I always pet a dog with my left hand, because if he bit me, I'd still have my right hand to paint with.”

Juan Gris (1887–1927) Spanish painter and sculptor

Attributed by Max Jacob (1876–1944) to Juan Gris, quoted in: Jeanine Warnod (1972). Washboat days. p. 204

Dogs , Painting

“Where is home? I've wondered where home is, and I realized, it's not Mars or someplace like that, it's Indianapolis when I was nine years old. I had a brother and a sister, a cat and a dog, and a mother and a father and uncles and aunts. And there's no way I can get there again.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

As quoted in "The World according to Kurt" http://web.archive.org/web/20051018012956/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051011.wxvonnegut11/BNStory/Entertainment/ in Globe and Mail [Toronto] (11 October 2005)
Various interviews

Dogs , Way , Home , Cats

“And if the big dog ain't me, then the house won't get guarded—period.”

Shaquille O'Neal (1972) American basketball player

[Wise, Mike, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/11/sports/pro-basketball-tension-between-o-neal-and-bryant-is-rising-every-day.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm, PRO BASKETBALL; Tension Between O'Neal and Bryant Is Rising Every Day, January 11, 2001, The News York Times]
O'Neal implying his level of defensive play would drop if he were not the team's featured option on offense.

Dogs , Housing

“You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another's said or sung,
'Twere politic to do the like by these;
But was there ever a dog that praised his fleas?”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

To A Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1724/
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)

Dogs

“[The Albanians] seem to be rather backward and primitive people… they can be as faithful as a dog; that is one of the traits of the primitive. Our Chuvash were the same. The Russian tsars always used them for their bodyguards.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Said to Edvard Kardelj (1947), as quoted in Vladimir Dedijer (1954), Tito Speaks, page 312
Contemporary witnesses

People , Faith , Dogs

“Twenty years ago I thought: "What's the difference between eating a bloody steak and killing my dog, slitting him open and roasting him?" I've always loved animals but it was around the late 80s that I realised I had to go vegetarian. A lot of things converged in my life then – musically, emotionally – but mainly it was my love of animals and spending so much time touring that made me decide I had to change my diet. In the Runaways we used to eat a ton of junk food. So something had to give.”

Joan Jett (1958) American rock musician, former member of The Runaways

“What's in your basket, Joan Jett?”, in theguardian.com (18 July 2010) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/18/joan-jett-vegetarian-diet.

Love , Life , Food , Dogs

“The face of "evil" is always the face of total need. A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope. Beyond a certain frequency need knows absolutely no limit or control. In the words of total need: "Wouldn't you?" Yes you would. You would lie, cheat, inform on your friends, steal, do anything to satisfy total need. Because you would be in a state of total sickness, total possession, and not in a position to act in any other way. Dope fiends are sick people who cannot act other than they do. A rabid dog cannot choose but bite.”

William S. Burroughs book Naked Lunch

Introduction
Naked Lunch (1959)

People , Lie , Dogs , Way

“I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. Not enough to weave a banner with, but white enough to keep it from such dogs. Give them no tear! Tears pleasure them! Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it!”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

John Proctor
The Crucible (1953)

Pleasure , Dogs , Thinking , Tear

“Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Sometimes ascribed to Robert Browning, this is in fact a misquotation from Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621): "They [i.e. ambitious men] may not cease, but as a dog in a wheel, a bird in a cage, or a squirrel in a chain, so Budaeus compares them; they climb and climb still, with much labour, but never make an end, never at the top".
Misattributed

Men , Dogs , Bird

“More often than not, the classes of objects encountered in the real physical world do not have precisely deﬁned criteria of membership. For example, the class of animals clearly includes dogs, horses, birds, etc. as its members, and clearly excludes such objects as rocks, ﬂuids, plants, etc. However, such objects as starfish, bacteria, etc. have an ambiguous status with respect to the class of animals. The same kind of ambiguity arises in the case of a number such as 10 in relation to the “class” of all real numbers which are much greater than 1.”

Lotfi A. Zadeh (1921–2017) Electrical engineer and computer scientist

Source: 1960s, Fuzzy sets (1965), p. 338

World , Dogs , Bird , Animals

“It's like having a pet dog for a long time. You get attached to it, and when it dies you miss it.”

Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete

On having his world records beaten
Jesse Owens, Champion Athlete (1990)

Dogs , Time

“How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg?”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

His collected works contain no riddle about dog legs, but George W. Julian recounts Lincoln using a similar story about a calf in Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by distinguished men of his time (1909), p. 241: "There are strong reasons for saying that he doubted his right to emancipate under the war power, and he doubtless meant what he said when he compared an Executive order to that effect to 'the Pope’s Bull against the comet.' In discussing the question, he used to liken the case to that of the boy who, when asked how many legs his calf would have if he called its tail a leg, replied, 'Five,' to which the prompt response was made that calling the tail a leg would not make it a leg."
A very similar riddle about cow legs was also circulated by Edward Josiah Stearns' Notes on Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853), p. 46: '"Father," said one of the rising generation to his paternal progenitor, "if I should call this cow's tail a leg, how many legs would she have?" "Why five, to be sure." "Why, no, father; would calling it a leg make it one?"'
Misattributed

Dogs

“Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little gray mouse, she called him Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Many Long Years Ago (1945), The Tale of Custard the Dragon

Dogs

“I started to "write" even before I knew the alphabet. I would dip a pen in ink and scribble. I also liked to draw — horses, houses, dogs. The Sabbath was an ordeal for me, because it is forbidden to write on that day.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991) Polish-born Jewish-American author

"A Day of Pleasure" (1996)

Dogs , Horse , Drawing , Housing

“I am so afraid of people's words.
They describe so distinctly everything:
And this they call dog and that they call house,
here the start and there the end.I worry about their mockery with words,
they know everything, what will be, what was;
no mountain is still miraculous;
and their house and yard lead right up to God.I want to warn and object: Let the things be!
I enjoy listening to the sound they are making.
But you always touch: and they hush and stand still.
That's how you kill.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Translated by Annemarie S. Kidder
In Celebration of Me (1909)

People , Dogs , Mountain , Housing

“If a dog starts biting you, you can't kick it up the throat like it deserves. People always say "Oh dear, poor little dog, he was only trying to be friendly. That's the way he tries to be friendly, sniffing at your ankles and biting you, you cruel, wicked man."”

Peter Cook (1937–1995) British architect

"Man's Best Friend" (1964)
E. L. Wisty

People , Dogs , Way

“I accept differences of cultures in all countries. But unfortunately, cows are grown to be eaten, dogs are not. I accept that many people eat beef, but a cultured country does not allow its people to eat dogs.”

Brigitte Bardot (1934) French model, actor, singer and animal rights activist

Unsourced

People , Dogs , Country

“What a pity and what a poverty of spirit, to assert that beasts are machines deprived of knowledge and sentiment, which affect all their operations in the same manner, which learn nothing, never improve, &c. […] Some barbarians seize this dog, who so prodigiously excels man in friendship, they nail him to a table, and dissect him living, to show the mezarian veins. You discover in him all the same organs of sentiment which are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the springs of sentiment in this animal that he should not feel? Has he nerves to be incapable of suffering? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction in nature. […] The animal has received those of sentiment, memory, and a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts, who has given these faculties? He who has made the herb of the field to grow, and who makes the earth gravitate towards the sun.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

" Beasts https://books.google.it/books?id=WQpJAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA8", in A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2, J. and H. L. Hunt, 1824, p. 9
Citas, Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)

Friendship , Dogs , Feeling , Spring

“Chielo, the priestess of Agbala, called the converts the excrement of the clan, and the new faith was a mad dog that had come to eat it up.”

Chinua Achebe book Things Fall Apart

Source: Things Fall Apart (1958), Chapter 16 (p. 133)

Faith , Dogs , Madness

“Karpov, Kasparov, Korchnoi have absolutely destroyed chess by their immoral, unethical, prearranged games. These guys are really the lowest dogs around, and if people knew the truth about them, they would be held in more contempt than Ben Johnson, the runner, and they're going to know the truth when I do this book!”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Press Conference, September 1 1992 http://www.bobby-fischer.net/Bobby_Fischer_Articles6.html
1990s

People , Truth , Books , Dogs

“He [Cézanne] reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter of fact interest of a dog who sees himself in a mirror and thinks: there’s another dog.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Letter to his wife, reprinted in Rilke’s Letters on Cézanne (1952, trans. 1985). (October 23, 1907)
Rilke's Letters

Dogs , Thinking

“I will not change my opinion, dear people, it is 5 minutes before twelve. Not just here in Holland. but in the whole of Europe. And is that what you want? I take my stand for this country, that which has been build up in the last five or six centuries. Damn it, we have a fifth column… Okay, let me tell you now straight the way it is! A fifth column of people who want to destroy this country! I will not go for that, and I say, "you can stay here, but you must adapt." I must hear "Allah is great", that I am a "dirty pig"… you are a "Christian dog". That is what they say, and you think that is okay… And I have so far been very reserved. I have never repeated that… but you accept being walked over, and I will not let that happen anymore. And that's where I get all those seats from (in the polls). Because this country is fed up! … C'est ça! That is what I stand for. And if I must express that otherwise, well, fine… but it is about your children, your grandchildren. For what else is this about? Must I explain more here? I can not do it any other way, and will not do it any other way. Then I would rather be finished off. Okay, fine… but the problem sir, will remain. That will remain. People have had more than enough of it. Damn it, in my city, Moroccan boys, Turkish boys… who do not rob the Turks, the Moroccans, but rob you and me and little old ladies. And the police? What they do? Damn it… nothing. They tell you: "If you say that, you discriminate". And that is what I express from the Dutch people. And I stand for it, I stand for it. Is that not allowed? Okay, I respect that. C'est ça”

Pim Fortuyn (1948–2002) Dutch politician

That’s all
Nederland 2 documentary "The Night of Fortuyn" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgM9JozWOf0

Children , People , Dogs , Way

“There was no choice. If you saw a dog going to be crushed under a car, wouldn't you help him?”

Oskar Schindler (1908–1974) German industrialist and Holocaust rescuer

To Poldek Pfefferberg, in response to the question of why he risked so much, as quoted in "Schindler : Why did he do it?" (2010) by Louis Bülow.

Dogs , Cars , Help

“The meeting in the open of two dogs, strangers to each other, is one of the most painful, thrilling, and pregnant of all conceivable encounters; it is surrounded by an atmosphere of the last canniness, presided over by a constraint for which I have no preciser name; they simply cannot pass each other, their mutual embarrassment is frightful to behold.”

Thomas Mann book A Man and His Dog

Herr und Hund (A Man and his Dog) (1918)

Pain , Dogs

“If a dog is biting a black man, the black man should kill the dog, whether the dog is a police dog or a hound dog or any kind of dog. If a dog is fixed on a black man when that black man is doing nothing but trying to take advantage of what the government says is supposed to be his, then that black man should kill that dog or any two-legged dog who sets the dog on him.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

" Malcolm X: Make It Plain http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/malcolmx/filmmore/pt.html," from The American Experience, season 6, episode 6, PBS (first aired 26 January 1994)
Attributed

Dogs

“A dog cannot relate his autobiography; however eloquently he may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were honest but poor.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), part II, chapter 1, p. 74
1940s

Dogs , Parent

“Among Troyon's paintings there are two huge ones; Return to the Farm is marvelous with its beautiful stormy sky. There is much windy motion in the clouds, and the cows and dogs are very good. In Going to the Market you see the mist at sunrise. It's superb and, most of all, very luminous. The wide space in View from Surennes is amazing. You feel you are really in the countryside.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

1859 letter to Eugène Boudin, June 3, 1859; as cited in Rodolphe Rapetti (1990) Monet, p. 11
Monet wrote Boudin this letter just after he visited the 1859 Salon.
1850 - 1870

Beauty , Dogs , Feeling , Painting

“Oh, oh, dog biscuit, and when he is happy he doesn't get snappy”

Dutch Schultz (1902–1935) American mobster

From police transcripts of incoherent deathbed confession

Dogs , Happiness

“Dog hates mouse and worships "cat", mouse despises "cat" and hates dog, "cat" hates no one and loves mouse.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

A Foreword to Krazy (1946)
Context: A humbly poetic, gently clownlike, supremely innocent, and illimitably affectionate creature (slightly resembling a child's drawing of a cat, but gifted with the secret grace and obvious clumsiness of a penguin on terra firma) who is never so happy as when egoist-mouse, thwarting altruist-dog, hits her in the head with a brick. Dog hates mouse and worships "cat", mouse despises "cat" and hates dog, "cat" hates no one and loves mouse.

Love , Hate , Dogs , Cats

“They remind us that he is a great man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. But "a living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this work, is at least a caged and toothless one.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, The House Divided speech (1858)
Context: There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends and yet whisper us softly, that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all this from the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point upon which he and we have never differed. They remind us that he is a great man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. But "a living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this work, is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He does not care anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing the "public heart" to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he really think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into the new Territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property; and as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave trade — how can he refuse that trade in that "property" shall be "perfectly free" — unless he does it as a protection to the home production? And as the home producers will probably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition.

Dogs , Dead

“Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come…”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

Barks and Purrs
Context: Toby-Dog: It seems to me that of the two of us it's you they make the most of, and yet you do all the grumbling.
Kiki-The-Demure: A dog's logic, that! The more one gives the more I demand.
Toby-Dog: That's wrong. It's indiscreet.
Kiki-The-Demure: Not at all. I have a right to everything.
Toby-Dog: To everything? And I?
Kiki-The-Demure: I don't imagine you lack anything, do you?
Toby-Dog: Ah, I don't know. Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come...
Kiki-The-Demure: And then what dreadful thing happens?
Toby-Dog: You know very well! Inevitably, at that moment She appears, carrying a bottle with horrible yellow stuff floating in it — Castor Oil!

Love , World , Sadness , Dogs

“To ask a politician to lead us is to ask the tail of a dog to lead the dog.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

"The Designers and the Politicians" (1962), later published in Beyond Left & Right : Radical Thought for Our Times (1968) by Richard Kostelanetz, p. 368
1960s
Context: Technology paces industry, but there's a long lag in the process. Industry paces economics. It changes the tools, a great ecological change. And in that manner we come finally to everyday life.
The politician is someone who deals in man's problems of adjustment. To ask a politician to lead us is to ask the tail of a dog to lead the dog.

Dogs

“Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats”

Robert Browning The Pied Piper of Hamelin

The Pied Piper of Hamelin, line 10 (1842).
Context: Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.

Dogs , Cats

“Dogs, also, bark at what they do not know.”

Heraclitus (-535) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher

Fragment 97
Numbered fragments

Dogs

“Two things alone remained to him in which he now put any trust: dogs and nature; an elk-hound and a rose bush. The world, in all its variety, life in all its complexity, had shrunk to that. Dogs and a bush were the whole of it.”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando: A Biography (1928), Ch. 2
Context: At the age of thirty, or thereabouts, this young Nobleman had not only had every experience that life has to offer, but had seen the worthlessness of them all. Love and ambition, women and poets were all equally vain. Literature was a farce. The night after reading Greene's Visit to a Nobleman in the Country, he burnt in a great conflagration fifty-seven poetical works, only retaining 'The Oak Tree', which was his boyish dream and very short. Two things alone remained to him in which he now put any trust: dogs and nature; an elk-hound and a rose bush. The world, in all its variety, life in all its complexity, had shrunk to that. Dogs and a bush were the whole of it.

Life , World , Dogs , Nature

“A fox and a wolf are both canine, both belong to the dog family. Now you take your choice. You going to choose a Northern dog or a Southern dog? Because either dog you choose, I guarantee you’ll still be in the dog house.
This is why I say it’s the ballot or the bullet. It’s liberty or it’s death. It’s freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)

Death , Family , Dogs , Freedom

“I was ever charitable and good to the poor, and scorn to take the bread out of another man's mouth. On the other side, by our Lady, they shall play me no foul play. I am an old cur at a crust, and can sleep dog-sleep when I list.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 33, as translated by Pierre Antoine Motteux in The History of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (1701)
Variant translations:
I'm kind-hearted by nature, and full of compassion for the poor; there's no stealing the loaf from him who kneads and bakes; and by my faith it won't do to throw false dice with me; I am an old dog, and I know all about 'tus, tus;' I can be wide-awake if need be, and I don't let clouds come before my eyes, for I know where the shoe pinches me; I say so, because with me the good will have support and protection, and the bad neither footing nor access. And it seems to me that, in governments, to make a beginning is everything; and maybe, after having been governor a fortnight, I'll take kindly to the work and know more about it than the field labour I have been brought up to.
Honesty's the best policy.
Context: I was ever charitable and good to the poor, and scorn to take the bread out of another man's mouth. On the other side, by our Lady, they shall play me no foul play. I am an old cur at a crust, and can sleep dog-sleep when I list. I can look sharp as well as another, and let me alone to keep the cobwebs out of my eyes. I know where the shoe wrings me. I will know who and who is together. Honesty is the best policy, I will stick to that. The good shall have my hand and heart, but the bad neither foot nor fellowship. And in my mind, the main point of governing, is to make a good beginning.

Dogs , Sleep

“Cinema is an old whore, like circus and variety, who knows how to give many kinds of pleasure. Besides, you can’t teach old fleas new dogs.”

Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker

As quoted in in The Atlantic (December 1965)

Whore , Pleasure , Dogs

“[after one of his dogs urinated in the bedroom] Who pissed!!? Who pissed on my fucking carpet!?! That bastard fucking dog man. I'm going to throw you in the pool! Get the fuck out of my house! Why do they do it Sharon? Whats the deal man? It's a fucking terrorist man! It's fucking part of Bin Laden's gang! Fucking Ali Baba used to go work on this rug.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

The Osbournes television show

Dogs , Housing , Parting

“In a world where social media is part of everyone’s life and your phone is glued to your hip like a dog chasing its own tail, we need to start celebrating our own bodies and the bodies of those around us more.”

Matkai Burmaster (1992) Film Director and Co-Founder of the Fearless streaming service

Source: Matkai.com - https://www.matkai.com/this-pride-lets-start-celebrating-the-bodies-that-go-uncelebrated/

World , Life , Dogs , Parting

“It is clear that the arm of criticism cannot replace the criticism of arms. Material force can only be overthrown by material force, but theory itself becomes a material force when it has seized the masses. Theory is capable of seizing the masses when it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp things by the root. But for man the root is man himself. What proves beyond doubt the radicalism of German theory, and thus its practical energy, is that it begins from the resolute positive abolition of religion. The criticism of religion ends with the doctrine that man is the supreme being for man. It ends, therefore, with the categorical imperative to overthrow all those conditions in which man is an abased, enslaved, abandoned, contemptible being—conditions which can hardly be better described than in the exclamation of a Frenchman on the occasion of a proposed tax upon dogs: 'Wretched dogs! They want to treat you like men!'”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)

Dogs , Religion , Men

“The criticism of religion ends with the doctrine that man is the supreme being for man, hence the categorical imperative to overthrow all those conditions in which man is degraded, enslaved, neglected, contemptible being—conditions which can hardly be better described than in the exclamation of a Frenchman on the occasion of a proposed tax upon dogs: 'Wretched dogs! They want to treat you like men!'”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)

Dogs , Religion , Men

“I'm not picking up dog shit. I'm a rock star.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

The Osbournes television show

Dogs , Star

“You don't need to hire a dog therapist, you just need to wake up at 7 am and open the fucking door!”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

The Osbournes television show

Dogs

“Did I ever tell you my pet peeve?'

No,' I said.

People who dress up their pets to look like Little Lord Fauntleroys or cowboys, clowns, ballerinas. As if it's not enough just to be a dog or cat or turtle.”

Jerry Spinelli book Love, Stargirl

Source: Love, Stargirl

People , Dogs , Cats

“The whole horror of the situation is that he now has a human heart, not a dog's heart. And about the rottenest heart in all creation!”

Mikhail Bulgakov book Heart of a Dog

Source: Heart of a Dog

Dogs , Heart

“Do all lovers feel helpless and valiant in the presence of the beloved? Helpless because the need to roll over like a pet dog is never far away. Valiant because you know you would slay a dragon with a pocket knife if you had to.”

Jeanette Winterson book The Passion

Source: The Passion (1987)

Dogs , Feeling , Lovers

“A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"A Dog's Best Friend Is His Illiteracy" in The Private Dining Room (1953)
Paraphrased variant: A door is that which a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
Source: Private Dining-room and Other New Verses

Dogs

““This short watch that is about to come, or rather these two short watches--why are they called dog watches? Where, heu, heu, is the canine connection?'
Why,' said Stephen, 'it is because they are curtailed of course.””

Patrick O'Brian book Post Captain

Source: Post Captain (1972)

Dogs

“What kind of dog is that?" I would always give the same answer: "She's a brown dog." Similarly, when the question is raised, "What kind of God do you believe in?" my answer is easy: "I believe in a magnificent God.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

God , Dogs , Question

“It is easy to forget that in the main we die only seven times more slowly than our dogs.”

Jim Harrison (1937–2016) American novelist, poet, essayist

Source: The Road Home

Dogs , Time , Forgetting

“Now I am just an elderly lady who is full of spleen,
who humps around greater Boston in a God-awful hat,
who never lived and yet outlived her time,
hating men and dogs and Democrats.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Men , God , Hate , Dogs

“I never knew words could be so confusing," Milo said to Tock as he bent down to scratch the dog's ear.
"Only when you use a lot to say a little," answered Tock.
Milo thought this was quite the wisest thing he'd heard all day.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Dogs

“Standing in the corridor was a large plastic bin on wheels. He looked inside. Empty tins of dog food. That explained the spaghetti with meat sauce. Oh well, he'd eaten worse.”

Charlie Higson book The Enemy

Source: The Enemy

Food , Dogs

“Ewwww-eee-wwww. Hey Ash, you vant to suck my blud? (Fang)
No, thanks. The last thing I want is to catch parvo from you, or some other freaky dog disease that makes me lift my leg around hydrants. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

Disease , Dogs

“Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic?"

"I give."

"You get someone who stays up all night torturing himself mentally over the question of whether or not there's a dog.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

Dogs , Question , Night

“You set fire to my house, killed my family, and ate my dog. But steal my boyfriend? That's a step too far.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Family , Dogs , Housing

“There's no such thing as a bad dog, just a bad owner.”

John Grogan (1958) American journalist

Source: Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

Dogs

“What difference does it make if you live in a picturesque little outhouse surrounded by 300 feeble minded goats and your faithful dog? The question is: Can you write?”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Faith , Dogs , Question

“How nice of Acheron to send us a playmate. (Daimon)
Play is for children and dogs. Now that you have identified which category you fall into, I'll show you what Romans do to rabid dogs. (Valerius)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Seize the Night

Children , Dogs

“We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the
meaning of it all.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Books , Dogs , Cats , Universe

“It is a much more straightforward thing to be a dog, and a dog's love, once given, is not reconsidered.”

Robin McKinley Deerskin

Source: Deerskin

Love , Dogs

“Some people had attack dogs. Ghastek had attack lawyers.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Gunmetal Magic

People , Dogs

“Whiskers of the cat,
Webbed toes on my swimming dog;
God is in the details.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Source: The Book Of Counted Sorrows

God , Dogs , Cats

“When what you want is a relationship, and not a person, get a dog.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Secret Life of Prince Charming

Dogs , Personality

“Where do I come into all of this? Am I just some animal or dog?' And that started them off govoreeting real loud and throwing slovos at me. So I creeched louder still, creeching: 'Am I just to be like a clockwork orange?”

Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange

Source: A Clockwork Orange

Dogs , Animals

“Like some dogs: kick them once and they never trust you again, no matter how nice you are to them.”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

Source: The Green Mile

Dogs

“The misery of keeping a dog is his dying so soon. But, to be sure, if he lived for fifty years and then died, what would become of me?”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

Dogs

“Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter II, p. 14.
Source: The Wealth of Nations

Dogs

“Haven't you heard about me?" he said, with a tight smile. "I'm really a very dangerous person." And he did look dangerous until he said, "Look, could you watch Dog for me while I'm gone? I can't take him where I'm going.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Crimson Crown

Smile , Dogs , Personality

“I say, thirteen is too many dogs for good mental health. Five is pretty much the limit. More than five dogs and you forfeit your right to call yourself entirely sane.
Even if the dogs are small.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver

Health , Dogs

“He shall fall down into a pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of reason.”

Aleister Crowley book The Book of the Law

Source: The Book of the Law

Dogs

“There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Dogs , Clothes

“Then a homeless man with a dog approached us and put his hand out. This happens to be something that I have a real problem with: homeless people with pets who approach you for food when they have a perfectly delicious dog standing right there?”

Chelsea Handler book Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

Source: Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

People , Food , Dogs , Problem

“No one can give anyone else the gift of the idyll; only an animal can do so, because only animals were not expelled from Paradise. The love between dog and man is idyllic. It knows no conflicts, no hair-raising scenes; it knows no development.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Love , Dogs , Animals

“Slowly, Anna put up a hand to his muzzle and began to scratch that spot behind the ear where large dogs keep their souls.”

Eva Ibbotson book A Countess Below Stairs

Source: A Countess Below Stairs

Dogs , Soul

“3. There are bears and there are small dogs. Be strong like bear! If they take out your teeth, sit on the dogs. Bears always forget they can just sit on the dogs. Sit on the dogs.”

Dave Eggers You Shall Know Our Velocity

Source: You Shall Know Our Velocity

Dogs , Strong , Forgetting

“There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and woman to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers & Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Men , Dogs , Way , Nature

“Treat 'em like dogs, and you'll have dogs' works and dogs' actions. Treat 'em like men, and you'll have men's works.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Men , Dogs

“I glanced up to see Liz and smiled. "Thank you."

"I just went along for the ride. After that happened-" She waved at Derek. "You know how blind people need Seeing Eye dogs? Well, apparently werewolves could really use Opening Door poltergeists.”

Kelley Armstrong The Reckoning

Source: The Reckoning

People , Smile , Dogs

“Dogs own space and cats own time.”

Nicola Griffith book Hild

Source: Hild

Dogs , Cats , Time

“How are you? How is your wonderful bathroom? How are the books you read and the things you think? Your dogs and their lives? The weather? Your feelings?”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters

Books , Dogs , Feeling , Thinking

“My friend died. (Astrid)
Died how? (Zarek)
Mmm, he had parvo. (Astrid)
Isn’t that a dog’s disease? (Zarek)
Yes. It was tragic. (Astrid)
Hey! I resent that. (Sasha)
Behave or I will give you parvo. (Astrid)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

Disease , Dogs

“I like to inquire into everything. Hercule Poirot is a good dog.”

Agatha Christie book Peril at End House

Hercule Poirot
Peril at End House (1932)
Context: I like to inquire into everything. Hercule Poirot is a good dog. The good dog follows the scent, and if, regrettably, there is no scent to follow, he noses around — seeking always something that is not very nice.

Dogs