100 Dog Quotes

Man’s best friend, the dog is still the most popular pet in the world. No wonder I’ve found more quotes about dogs than for any other topics I’ve researched for prior “quotes” lists!

They’re cute, loyal, brave, reliable, cheerful, trusting, hardworking, and protective when trained properly. They have labored side by side with humans—not to mention walked side by side with us as our constant companions—since we formed the happy union about 100,000 years ago, when the wolf and the dog first split into different species in China.

(Cats are pretty cool, too! I’m doing “100 Cat Quotes” next.) So, without further ado, let’s get right to the dog quotes!

100 QUOTES ABOUT DOGS

1. When a man’s best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.
- Edward Abbey

2. Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car—in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing, right in your ear.
- Dave Barry

3. You can say any fool thing to a dog; and, the dog will give you this look that says, “My God, you’re RIGHT! I NEVER would’ve thought of that!”
- Dave Barry

4. A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.
- Robert Benchley

5. Dachshunds are ideal dogs for small children, as they are already stretched and pulled to such a length that the child cannot do much harm one way or the other.
- Robert Benchley

6. The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.
- Ambrose Bierce

7. A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.
- Josh Billings

8. Things that upset a terrier may pass virtually unnoticed by a Great Dane.
- Smiley Blanton

9. You gonna bark all day little doggy, or are you gonna bite?
- Mr. Blonde from “Reservoir Dogs”

10. Did you ever notice when you blow in a dog’s face he gets mad at you? But, when you take him in a car, he sticks his head out the window.
- Steve Bluestone

11. The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and, not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
- Samuel Butler

12. A dog wags its tail with its heart.
- Martin Buxbaum

13. If dogs could talk, perhaps we would find it as hard to get along with them as we do with people.
- Karel Capek

14. Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
- Roger Caras

15. If you don’t own a dog—at least one—there is not necessarily anything wrong with you; but, there may be something wrong with your life.
- Roger Caras

16. Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is, without a doubt, the best deal man has ever made.
- Roger Caras

17. Flatterers look like friends, as wolves like dogs.
- George Chapman

18. Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.
- Agatha Christie

19. The nose of the Bulldog has been slanted backwards so that he can breathe without letting go.
- Winston Churchill

20. Bulldogs are adorable, with faces like toads that have been sat on.
- Colette

21. Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.
- Colette

22. Any man who does not like dogs and want them about does not deserve to be in the White House.
- Calvin Coolidge

23. The dog is a “yes” animal. Very popular with people who can’t afford a “yes” man.
- Robertson Davies

24. Dogs have more love than integrity. They’ve been true to us, yes; but, they haven’t been true to themselves.
- Clarence Day

25. We are alone, absolutely alone, on this chance planet; and, amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us.
- Max Depree

26. Let sleeping dogs lie.
- Charles Dickens

27. Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.
- Emily Dickinson

28. I am called a dog because I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals.
- Diogenes

29. Dogs laugh; but, they laugh with their tails. What puts man in a higher state of evolution is that he has got his laugh on the right end.
- Max Eastman

30. I think we are drawn to dogs because they are the uninhibited creatures we might be if we weren’t certain we knew better.
- George Bird Evans

31. There are three faithful friends: an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.
- Benjamin Franklin

32. My goal in life is to become as wonderful as my dog thinks I am.
- Toby Eileen Green

33. Life is like a dog sled team. If you ain’t the lead dog, the scenery never changes.
- Lewis Grizzard

34. Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp post how it feels about dogs.
- Christopher Hampton

35. I hope if dogs ever take over the world, and they chose a king, they don’t just go by size, because I bet there are some Chihuahuas with some good ideas.
- Jack Handy

36. He that lieth with the dogs, riseth with fleas.
- George Herbert

37. Whoever said you can’t buy happiness forgot little puppies.
- Gene Hill

38. Even the tiniest Poodle or Chihuahua is still a wolf at heart.
- Dorothy Hinshaw

39. In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn’t merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.
- Edward Hoagland

40. A dog is not almost-human—and I know of no greater insult to the canine race than to describe it as such.
- John Holmes

41. To his dog, every man is King; hence, the constant popularity of dogs.
- Aldous Huxley

42. There are times when even the best manager is like the little boy with the big dog: waiting to see where the dog wants to go, so he can take him there.
- Lee Iacocca

43. You learn in this business: If you want a friend, get a dog.
- Carl Icahn

44. My dog is usually pleased with what I do—because she is not infected with the concept of what I “should” be doing.
- Lonzo Idolswine

45. A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.
- Washington Irving

46. Scratch a dog, and you’ll find a permanent job.
- Franklin P. Jones

47. They [dogs] never talk about themselves but listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance of being interested in the conversation.
- Jerome K. Jerome

48. Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring—it was peace.
- Milan Kundera

49. Know yourself. Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
- Ann Landers

50. The more I see of the representatives of the people, the more I admire my dogs.
- Alphonse de Lamartine

51. If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater, suggest that he wear a tail.
- Fran Lebowitz

52. How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.
- Abraham Lincoln

53. A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.
- Jack London

54. Just give me a comfortable couch, a dog, a good book, and a woman. Then, if you can get the dog to go somewhere and read the book, I might have a little fun!
- Groucho Marx

55. Outside of a dog, a book is probably man’s best friend; and, inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
- Groucho Marx

56. The biggest dog has been a pup.
- Joaquin Miller

57. A Pekingese is not a pet dog; he is an undersized lion.
- A. A. Milne

58. Dogs never bite me. Just humans.
- Marilyn Monroe

59. No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does.
- Christopher Morley

60. Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? I think that is how dogs spend their lives.
- Sue Murphy

61. Happiness to a dog is what lies on the other side of a door.
- Charleton Ogburn, Jr.

62. Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
- Alexander Pope

63. Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.
- Agnes Replier

64. From a dog’s point of view, his master is an elongated and abnormally cunning dog.
- Mabel L. Robinson

65. If a picture wasn’t going very well, I’d put a puppy dog in it—always a mongrel, you know—never one of the full bred puppies. And, then, I’d put a bandage on its foot. … I liked it when I did it; but, now, I’m sick of it.
- Norman Rockwell

66. I love a dog. He does nothing for political reasons.
- Will Rogers

67. No man can be condemned for owning a dog. As long as he has a dog, he has a friend; and, the poorer he gets, the better friend he has.
- Will Rogers

68. The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.
- Andy Rooney

69. If dogs could talk, it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one.
- Andy Rooney

70. I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.
- Rita Rudner

71. A dog doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, big or small, young or old. He doesn’t care if you’re not smart, not popular, not a good joke-teller, not the best athlete, nor the best-looking person. To your dog, you are the greatest, the smartest, the nicest human being who was ever born. You are his friend and protector.
- Louis Sabin

72. No matter how little money and how few possessions you own, having a dog makes you rich.
- Louis Sabin

73. I once decided not to date a guy because he wasn’t excited to meet my dog. I mean, this was like not wanting to meet my mother.
- Bonnie Schacter

74. Do not make the mistake of treating your dogs like humans; or, they will treat you like dogs.
- Martha Scott

75. Recollect that the Almighty, who gave the dog to be companion of our pleasures and our toils, hath invested him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit.
- Sir Walter Scott

76. Money will buy you a pretty good dog; but, it won’t buy the wag of his tail.
- Henry Wheeler Shaw

77. My dog is half pit bull, half poodle. Not much of a watchdog; but, a vicious gossip!
- Craig Shoemaker

78. Yesterday I was a dog. Today I’m a dog. Tomorrow I’ll probably still be a dog. *Sigh!* There’s so little hope for advancement.
– Snoopy

79. I’ve seen a look in dogs’ eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt; and, I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.
- John Steinbeck

80. You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

81. Every dog must have his day.
- Jonathan Swift

82. Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses.
- Elizabeth Taylor

83. Dogs, the foremost snobs in creation, are quick to notice the difference between a well-clad and a disreputable stranger.
- Albert Payson Terhune

84. A dog, I will maintain, is a very tolerable judge of beauty, as appears from the fact that any liberally educated dog does, in a general way, prefer a woman to a man.
- Frances Thompson

85. When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.
- Henry David Thoreau

86. It often happens that a man is more humanely related to a cat or dog than to any human being.
- Henry David Thoreau

87. If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
- James Thurber

88. A hungry dog hunts best.
- Lee Trevino

89. The dog is a gentleman. I hope to go to his heaven, not man’s.
- Mark Twain

90. It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
- Mark Twain

91. By what right has the dog come to be regarded as a “noble” animal? The more brutal and cruel and unjust you are to him, the more your fawning and adoring slave he becomes. Whereas, if you shamefully misuse a cat once, she will always maintain a dignified reserve toward you afterward. You will never get her full confidence again.
- Mark Twain

92. If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. That is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
- Mark Twain

93. Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
- Mark Twain

94. When a man’s dog turns against him, it is time for his wife to pack her trunk and go home to Mama.
- Mark Twain

95. The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.
- George Graham Vest

96. The dog was created specially for children. He is the god of frolic.
- Henry Ward

97. Cowardly dogs bark loudest.
- John Webster

98. My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to 99 cents a can. That’s almost $7.00 in dog money.
- Joe Weinstein

99. There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.
- Ben Williams

100. If a dog will not come to you, after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.
- Woodrow Wilson

CONCLUSION

I was lucky enough to have had several puppies and dogs while growing up. They always made the worst situations more tolerable and the best situations even more special. My favorite was a little sandy runty pitbull with the saddest eyes you ever saw! Not at all vicious. Lazy was more like it! But, oh so adorable! And, friendly as can be! Do you have any favorite dog stories or quotes you’d like to share?

Be sure to get the latest articles as soon as they’re posted by signing up here!

[For “100 Cat Quotes,” click here.]

[For “300 Friendship Quotes,” click here.]

[For “200 Happiness Quotes,” click here.]

[For “100 Blessings Quotes,” click here.]

[For “100 Health Quotes,” click here.]

[For “100 Interesting Quotes by Women,” click here.]

[For “100 Love and Marriage Quotes,” click here.]

[For “100 Differences between Men and Women,” click here.]

[For “100 Money Quotes,” click here.]

[For “100 Best Lawyer Jokes,” click here.]

[For “125 Sarcastic Quotes,” click here.]

[For all posts about different QUOTES, click here.]

[For more “Easy Steps to Success with People,” click here.]