Dog Quotes — We Rounded up the Best of the Best (2024)

You ever wonder what your dog is thinking? What he or she wants to say? We’d all love it if our dogs could talk — some of the time, at least. (If nothing else we’d be guaranteed some good dog quotes!) In lieu of that, we have some quotes about dogs, by the humans who love them. They’re like family to us, and why not celebrate it? Here are great quotes about man’s best friend.

“Everything I know I learned from dogs.” – Nora Roberts (author, The Search)

“Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.”– Orhan Pamuk (author, My Name Is Red)

“Dogs’ lives are too short. Their only fault, really.” – Agnes Sligh Turnbull (author, The Wedding Bargain)

“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.” – Roger Caras (photographer and writer)

“Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses.” – Elizabeth Taylor (actress)

“The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.” – Charles De Gaulle

“Dogs never bite me. Just Humans” – Marilyn Monroe

“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” – Winston Churchill

“Scratch a dog and you’ll find a permanent job.” – Franklin P. Jones (humourist)

“The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man’s.” – Mark Twain (author, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

“To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.” – Aldous Huxley (author, Brave New World)

“Anybody who doesn’t know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.” – Franklin P. Jones (humourist)

“Happiness is a warm puppy.” – Charles Shultz (cartoonist, Peanuts)

“Every dog must have his day.” – Jonathan Swift (author, Gulliver’s Travels)

“As wonderful as dogs can be, they are famous for missing the point.” – Jean Ferris (author, Once Upon a Marigold)

“What do dogs do on their day off? Can’t lie around – that’s their job.” – George Carlin (comedian)

“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.”– Josh Billings (humourist)

“Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day.” – John Grogan (Author, Marley & Me)

“Did you know that there are over 300 words for love in canine?” – Gabriel Zevin (author, Margarettown)

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” – Will Rogers (humourist)

“There is no faith which has never yet been broken, except that of a truly faithful dog” – Konrad Lorenz (zoologist)

“You can usually tell that a man is good if he has a dog who loves him.” – W. Bruce Cameron (author,A Dog’s Journey)

“I don’t understand people who don’t touch their pets. Their cat or dog is called a pet for a reason.” – Jarod Kintz (author,This Book is Not FOR SALE)

“If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” – Harry Truman (former president of the United States)

“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 A. Caras (Author,A Dog Is Listening: The Way Some of Our Closest Friends View Us)

“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 man.” – Mark Twain (Author, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)

“Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion thattheyare gods”– Christopher Hitchens (Author,The Portable Atheist )

“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

“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 (Author,The Unbearable Lightness of Being)

“A dog will make eye contact. A cat will, too, but a cat’s eyes don’t even look entirely warm-blooded to me, whereas a dog’s eyes look human except less guarded. A dog will look at you as if to say, ‘What do you want me to do for you? I’ll do anything for you.’ Whether a dog can in fact, do anything for you if you don’t have sheep [I never have] is another matter. The dog is willing.” – Roy Blount Jr. (Author,Now, Where Were We?)

“It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.” – John Grogan (Author, Marley & Me)

“All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed.For after all, he was only human. He wasn’t a dog.” – Charles M Schulz (cartoonist, “Peanuts”)

“Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer.” – Dean Koontz (Author, False Memory)

“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 A. Caras (author, A Dog Is Listening: The Way Some of Our Closest Friends View Us)

“I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross, and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk.” – Mark Haddon (author, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time)

“When an 85-pound mammal licks your tears away, then tries to sit on your lap, it’s hard to feel sad.” – Kristan Higgins (author, In Your Dreams)

“Science has so far been unable to tell us how self-aware dogs are, much less whether they have anything like our conscious thoughts. This is not surprising, since neither scientists nor philosophers can agree about what the consciousness of humans consists of, let alone that of animals.” – John Bradshaw (author, Dog Sense)

“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 Cristie (author)

“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 (author, The Grapes of Wrath)

“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 (author, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)

“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 (humourist)

“Watching a dog try to chew a large piece of toffee is a pastime fit for gods. Mr. Fusspot’s mixed ancestry had given him a dexterity of jaw that was truly awesome. He somersaulted happily around the floor, making faces like a rubber gargoyle in a washing machine.” – Terry Pratchett (author,Making Money)

“The greatest fear dogs know is the fear that you will not come back when you go out the door without them.” – Stanley Coren (psychologist and author,The Intelligence of Dogs)

“But humans drive the cars and decide when dogs eat and where dogs live and clearly this was something else in their power – they could find their dogs when they needed them.” – W. Bruce Cameron (author,A Dog’s Journey)

“Love – that which biologists, nervous about being misunderstood, call ‘attachment ‘- fuels the bond between dog and master or mistress.” – John Bradshaw (author,Dog Sense)

“I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me, they are the role model for being alive.” – Gilda Radner (comedian)

“I have found that when you are deeply troubled, there are things you get from the silent devoted companionship of a dog that you can get from no other source.” – Doris Day (actress)

“The dog has seldom been successful in pulling man up to its level of sagacity, but man has frequently dragged the dog down to his.” – James Thurber (author,The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)

“Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.” – Ann Landers (advice columnist for theChicago Sun-Times)

“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.” – Maurice Maeterlinck(author, “Our Friend, the Dog”)

“I sometimes look into the face of my dog Stan and see a wistful sadness and existential angst, when all he is actually doing is slowly scanning the ceiling for flies.” – Merrill Markoe (author,Nose Down, Eyes Up )

“The capacity for love that makes dogs such rewarding companions has a flip-side: They find it difficult to cope without us. Since we humans programmed this vulnerability, it’s our responsibility to ensure that our dogs do not suffer as a result.” – John Bradshaw (author,Dog Sense )

“I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a Schnauzer named Teddy. Salvador Biagiani was philosophical. He said it sure beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Vietnam War.” – Kurt Vonnegut (author,God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian )

More Dog Quotes​​​​

• “A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.” – Josh Billings (humourist)
• “My father… was a man who understood all dogs thoroughly and treated them like human beings.” – Flann O’Brien (author, The Third Policeman)
• “What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” – Dwight D Eisenhower (former president of the United States)
• “Reason No. 106 why dogs are smarter than humans: Once you leave the litter, you sever contact with your mothers.” – Jodi Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper)