82 Dog Quotes and Who Said Them

Before writing this, we read twelve of the dog quote lists that rank on Google, from Care.com's 101 to a 10-quote National Dog Day post. Not one of them links a quote to the place it was said or written, and the same mistakes travel from list to list. Four of the seven pages that carry Josh Billings's famous line misquote it. Mark Twain gets credit for "It's not the size of the dog in the fight," which nobody has found in anything he wrote. Harry Truman gets "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog," a line that first reached him through an actor playing him on stage.

So every attributed quote below links to its source, and where the circulating version differs from the original, you get the original. Lines we could not trace to the person whose name is on them are left out of the lists. The section on misattributed quotes explains what happened to each.

What is the most famous dog quote?

Josh Billings's line about a dog loving you more than it loves itself. It sits on more of the ranking lists than any other quote, usually in this form: "A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself." Billings was the pen name of the American humorist Henry Wheeler Shaw, who wrote in deliberately bad spelling, and his own versions read differently.

• "A dog iz the only animal kritter who luvs yu more than he luvs himself." Josh Billings, "Josh Billing's Papers," The Orangeburg News, South Carolina, October 30, 1869, the earliest printing we found
• "A dog iz the only thing on this earth that luvs yu more than he luvs himself." Josh Billings, Farmer's Allminax, the November page of the almanac for 1871

Charles Darwin quoted the line in the 1874 second edition of The Descent of Man, crediting it only to "an old writer." Billings was alive and selling almanacs at the time. The four lists that print "loves you more than you love yourself" have changed the meaning: Billings was saying the dog puts you ahead of itself.

Short dog quotes

For a photo caption, the inside of a card, a mug, or a line engraved under a portrait. Each runs about fifteen words or fewer.

• "Dogs' lives are too short. Their only fault, really." Agnes Sligh Turnbull, The Flowering, 1972, spoken by a character in chapter 2
• "Whoever said "you can't buy happiness" forgot little puppies." Gene Hill, A Hunter's Fireside Book, 1972
• "The average dog is a nicer person than the average person." Andy Rooney, quoted in TIME, July 21, 1980
• "Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift." Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings, 2004, reprinted in Dog Songs in 2013
• "They were friends in a friendship closer than brotherhood." Ouida, A Dog of Flanders, 1872, about the boy Nello and the dog Patrasche
• "Life's too short to bark at everybody who comes into our yard." P. G. Wodehouse, "The Mixer," 1917, a story narrated by a dog
• "A dog, particularly an exotic like Charley, is a bond between strangers." John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley, 1962
• "The answer seems simple to me: dogs were never expelled from Paradise." Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984, translated by Michael Henry Heim
• "Dogs know the meaning and anguish of doors." Christopher Morley, "On Doors," Mince Pie, 1919
• "Thou shalt not bury bones in the flower beds." Christopher Morley, "The Dog's Commandments," Mince Pie, 1919
• "Carlo died - E. Dickinson Would you instruct me now?" Emily Dickinson, the whole of her letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, January 1866

Funny dog quotes

Clean enough for the family group chat, and each traced to the humorist, columnist or comedian who wrote it. A few of the most shared jokes are missing on purpose, including Groucho Marx's "inside of a dog" line. The misattributed section explains why.

• "I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me they are the role model for being alive." Gilda Radner, It's Always Something, 1989. A few lines earlier she teases people who "show you endless pictures of their dog, and all the pictures look alike."
• "If aliens are watching this through telescopes, they're going to think the dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them's making a poop, the other one's carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge?" Jerry Seinfeld, SeinLanguage, 1993
• "If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater . . . suggest that he wear a tail." Fran Lebowitz, "Pointers for Pets," Social Studies, 1981
• "I've learned to live with the fact that my two dogs, Earnest and Zippy, are way more popular than I am. [...] all of my dog columns basically boil down to the following statement: "Boy, are dogs ever stupid!"" Dave Barry, Dave Barry Talks Back, 1991
• "I'm a dog person. There is something about their hopeful faces and trusting eyes that I find totally irresistible." Rita Rudner, I Still Have It . . . I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It, 2008
• "I worry what the dog thinks when he sees me coming out of the shower [...]" Erma Bombeck, If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?, 1978. The version in the viral "If I had my life to live over" list is reworded.
• "The suburban dog had it made. Owners pampered them to death with dietary dog food, dental appointments, knitted stoles to take off the evening chill [...]" Erma Bombeck, The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank, 1976
• "But a dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down, very important traits in times like these." Robert Benchley, "Your Boy and His Dog," 1932. The circulating version cuts the last clause, which is the joke. Benchley set it off with a dash.
• "There is no doubt that every healthy, normal boy [...] should own a dog at some time in his life, preferably between the ages of forty-five and fifty." Robert Benchley, the same essay
• "One of the reasons why dogs are given credit for serious thinking is the formation of their eyebrows. [...] It is quite possible, and even probable, that nothing at all is going on behind the eyebrows." Robert Benchley, the same essay
• "It has been well said that quietness is what a Grecian urn is the still unravished bride of, / And that a door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of." Ogden Nash, "A Dog's Best Friend Is His Illiteracy," 1953. The door joke was in print by 1898; the Keats pun is Nash's.
• "The truth I do not stretch or shove / When I state the dog is full of love. / I've also proved, by actual test, / A wet dog is the lovingest." Ogden Nash, The New Yorker, October 12, 1957. The version that circulates reads "I've also found."
• "A dog that is indoors / To be let out implores. / You let him out and what then? / He wants back in again." Ogden Nash, "An Introduction to Dogs," 1941
• "I have repeatedly left comfortable homes in order to follow some perfect stranger who looked as if he were on his way to somewhere interesting. Sometimes I think I must have cat blood in me." P. G. Wodehouse, "The Mixer," 1917, the dog narrator again
• "The place was a sea of Pekingese dogs. Later investigation reduced their numbers to six, but in that first moment there seemed to be hundreds." P. G. Wodehouse, "Ukridge's Dog College," Ukridge, 1924
• "To look at Montmorency you would imagine that he was an angel sent upon the earth, for some reason withheld from mankind, in the shape of a small fox-terrier." Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), 1889. The next pages list the chickens he killed.
• "Fox-terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs are [...]" Jerome K. Jerome, the same book, chapter 13
• "Now, there is nothing haughty about a dog. They are "Hail, fellow, well met" with every Tom, Dick, or Harry that they come across." Jerome K. Jerome, "On Vanity and Vanities," 1886
• ""I wish I owned half of that dog." "Why?" somebody asked. "Because I would kill my half."" Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson, chapter 1, 1894. The town takes the joke literally, which is how Wilson gets his nickname.
• "My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian." Mark Twain, the opening line of "A Dog's Tale," 1903. The story itself turns sad fast.
• "DOG, n. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship." Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
• "Tha kant talk, but tha kan lick yure hand, this shows that their hearts iz in the plase where uther folks' tungs iz." Josh Billings, "On Dogs," Josh Billings, Hiz Sayings, 1866
• "I thank the Lord that thare iz one thing in this world that money kant buy, and that iz, the wag ov a dogs tail." Josh Billings, Old Probability: Perhaps Rain, Perhaps Not, 1879, as traced by Quote Investigator
• "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, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, 1912
• "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, Travels with Charley, 1962, as traced by Quote Investigator

Quotes about dogs and loyalty

The "best friend" lines. Several are older than the phrase "man's best friend," and a few of the most repeated ones come from a courtroom and a gravestone.

• "The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is the dog." George Graham Vest, "Eulogy of the Dog," closing argument in the Old Drum case, Warrensburg, Missouri, 1870. Many versions say "his dog"; the Senate's text says "the dog."
• "He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince." George Graham Vest, the same speech
• "But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend, / The first to welcome, foremost to defend, / Whose honest heart is still his master's own, / Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone" Lord Byron, "Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog," 1808
• "Near this Spot are deposited the Remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, and all the virtues of Man without his Vices." John Cam Hobhouse, the prose inscription above Byron's poem on the monument. It is almost always credited to Byron, but scholars credit his friend Hobhouse.
• "Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of Dogs than of Friends, but I will not insist upon many of 'em, because it is possible some may be almost as fabulous." Alexander Pope, letter to Henry Cromwell, 1709, printed 1727. The popular version stops at "Friends" and loses Pope's joke.
• "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, Our Friend the Dog, 1904, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. One ranking list credits this to Max De Pree.
• "He is the only living being that has found and recognizes an indubitable, tangible, unexceptionable and definite god." Maurice Maeterlinck, the same book
• "He never makes it his business to inquire whether you are in the right or in the wrong, never bothers as to whether you are going up or down upon life's ladder, never asks whether you are rich or poor, silly or wise, sinner or saint. You are his pal." Jerome K. Jerome, "On Cats and Dogs," The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, 1886
• "They 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, the same essay, where "they" means cats and dogs together
• "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." Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, heading chapter 16 of Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894
• "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, The Talisman, 1825, spoken by his Richard the Lionheart
• "As soon as he saw Ulysses standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master." Homer, The Odyssey, Book XVII, translated by Samuel Butler. Argos is the dog who knew Odysseus after twenty years away.
• "I am his Highness' dog at Kew; / Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?" Alexander Pope, engraved on the collar of a dog he gave Frederick, Prince of Wales, in the 1730s
• "His attachment was without selfishness, His playfulness without malice, His fidelity without deceit, READER, If you would be beloved and die regretted, Profit by the example of DASH" The epitaph Queen Victoria placed on the grave of her spaniel Dash at Windsor, 1840. Nobody recorded who wrote it.

Quotes about loving a dog

For the card to someone who just brought a puppy home, or the caption on the photo where the dog is on the good sofa again.

• "A dog doesn't care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his." John Grogan, Marley & Me, 2005
• "A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbols mean nothing to him. A waterlogged stick will do just fine." John Grogan, the same page
• "we long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment." Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Chapters on Animals, 1874. Usually credited to George Eliot; see the misattributed section.
• "affection without ambivalence, the simplicity of a life free from the almost unbearable conflicts of civilization, the beauty of an existence complete in itself" Sigmund Freud, letter to Marie Bonaparte, December 6, 1936, on why people love their dogs so intensely. He and his daughter Anna translated her book about her chow, Topsy, into German.
• "You ask of my Companions Hills - Sir - and the Sundown - and a Dog - large as myself, that my Father bought me - They are better than Beings - because they know - but do not tell" Emily Dickinson, letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, April 25, 1862. The dog is Carlo.
• "If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her; if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my dog would forsake me then. My barefoot rank is better." Emily Dickinson, letter to Higginson, 1862, as printed in The Atlantic, 1891
• "Loving friend, the gift of one, / Who, her own true faith, hath run, / Through thy lower nature; / Be my benediction said / With my hand upon thy head, / Gentle fellow-creature!" Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "To Flush, My Dog," 1844
• "Between them lay the widest gulf that can separate one being from another. She spoke. He was dumb. She was woman; he was dog. Thus closely united, thus immensely divided, they gazed at each other." Virginia Woolf, Flush: A Biography, 1933, the first meeting of Flush and Elizabeth Barrett
• "Buy a pup and your money will buy / Love unflinching that cannot lie" Rudyard Kipling, "The Power of the Dog," 1909
• "I would rather train a striped zebra to balance an Indian club than induce a dachshund to heed my slightest command. [...] When I address Fred I never have to raise either my voice or my hopes." E. B. White, "Dog Training," One Man's Meat, 1941
• "I do not like dogs, because they bark when there is no occasion for it; but I have liked this one from the beginning, because he belonged to Jean, and because he never barks except when there is occasion" Mark Twain, "The Death of Jean," 1909, written in the days after his daughter died. He goes on: "which is not oftener than twice a week."
• "Animals are such agreeable friends, they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms." George Eliot, "Mr. Gilfil's Love Story," chapter 7, Scenes of Clerical Life, 1857, as the old bloodhound Rupert greets Caterina. Eliot used a dash where we have the first comma. This one really is hers.

Grogan's line about the waterlogged stick is the whole case for photographing a dog at home rather than at a studio. The picture that looks like your dog is the one on the back step with the stick.

That everyday photo is also the one we paint. Upload a single clear shot of your dog, pick a persona such as a crowned monarch, a knight in armor, an astronaut or a soft watercolor, and the scene is painted around your dog's real face, fur and markings. It becomes a custom pet portrait on a gallery canvas from $59, a framed canvas from $79, a fleece blanket from $59 or a jigsaw puzzle from $55, and you approve a watermarked proof before anything prints.

Who were the dogs behind the famous quotes?

Most of the quotes that last were written about one particular dog. Knowing which dog, and what happened to it, is often the difference between a line that fits your card and one that doesn't: Byron's famous epitaph is a grave inscription, and Vest's "unselfish friend" speech won a lawsuit over a hound that had been shot.

Each row links to the letter, archive or published source it rests on.

Quotes for losing a dog

For a sympathy card, a memorial, or the plaque under a portrait. The writers below had all lost a dog of their own when they wrote these, and it shows.

• "We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way." Irving Townsend, "The Once Again Prince," the epigraph of Separate Lifetimes, 1986. Many versions read "we would still live."
• "Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives." John Galsworthy, "Memories," 1912, his essay on his spaniel
• "No stone stands over where he lies. It is on our hearts that his life is engraved." John Galsworthy, the last lines of the same essay
• "The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of its master." Ben Hur Lampman, "Where to Bury a Dog," 1926, written for the Morning Oregonian. Many versions drop "good" and change "its" to "his."
• "It would be a poor tribute to my memory never to have a dog again." Eugene O'Neill, The Last Will and Testament of Silverdene Emblem O'Neill, 1940
• "No matter how deep my sleep I shall hear you, and not all the power of death can keep my spirit from wagging a grateful tail." Eugene O'Neill, the closing line of the same will
• "Dogs do not fear death as men do. We accept it as part of life, not as something alien and terrible which destroys life." Eugene O'Neill, the same will
• "I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives, and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race [...]" Sir Walter Scott, letter of 1822, printed in Lockhart's Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott. He goes on: "if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?"
• "the comparative shortness of the lives of dogs is the only imperfection in the relation between them and us." Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Chapters on Animals, 1874
• "His intelligent eyes opened to look out upon the world, to love mankind, then closed again on the cruel secrets of death." Maurice Maeterlinck, Our Friend the Dog, 1904, about his bulldog puppy Pelléas
• "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." A reader named Elaine, quoted by John Grogan in Marley & Me, 2005. It is usually credited to Grogan himself.
• "Boatswain is dead! [...] retaining all the gentleness of his nature to the last" Lord Byron, letter to Francis Hodgson, November 1808
• "To mark a Friend's remains these stones arise; / I never knew but one, and here he lies." Lord Byron, the closing couplet of the Boatswain inscription, 1808. Byron put a dash where we have the comma.
• "Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware / Of giving your heart to a dog to tear." Rudyard Kipling, "The Power of the Dog," 1909
• "When the body that lived at your single will / When the whimper of welcome is stilled (how still!) [...] You will discover how much you care, / And will give your heart to a dog to tear!" Rudyard Kipling, the same poem

Do dogs go to heaven? What writers said

Plenty of writers took the dog's side on this one. The most quoted line on the subject, "If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went," is credited to Will Rogers, but we found no source from his lifetime, so it is not here. These are.

• "Leave your dog outside. Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit you would stay out and the dog would go in." Mark Twain, advice on arriving at heaven's gate, written in early 1910 and printed in Albert Bigelow Paine's Mark Twain: A Biography, 1912. Paine calls it the last sustained writing Twain did. The circulating version reads "your dog would go in."
• "You think those dogs will not be in Heaven! I tell you they will be there long before any of us." Thomas Stevenson, father of Robert Louis Stevenson, as remembered by a dinner guest in I Can Remember Robert Louis Stevenson, 1922. He was talking to his two Skye terriers.
• "Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge." Edna Clyne-Rekhy, the opening line of "Rainbow Bridge," written in 1959 after her Labrador, Major, died. It spread for decades without her name.

Kundera's "never expelled from Paradise," in the short quotes above, belongs here too. For more on marking the loss of a pet, including what to send and when, see our guide to pet memorial gifts.

Which famous dog quotes are misattributed?

Ten widely shared lines in the table below carry the wrong name, the wrong wording, or a credit nobody can support. Three that each turn up on a third of the ranking lists: "size of the fight" is not Twain's, Truman never said the Washington line, and Groucho was first linked to his "inside of a dog" joke thirty years after it appeared in print. Each correction links to the source that settles it.

Each correction links to the scan, archive or published source it rests on.

The Rainbow Bridge poem belongs in the same family. For decades it circulated without a name, and several people later claimed it. None of those claims has a documented publication before Dear Abby printed the poem, unsigned, on February 20, 1994. The researcher Paul Koudounaris traced it to Edna Clyne-Rekhy, who still had her handwritten original from 1959.

We also left out these popular lines, because we could not trace them to the person whose name is on them:

• "Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole." (Roger Caras; the earliest appearances we found are quote anthologies from 2000)
• "Be the person your dog thinks you are." (C. J. Frick; it circulated without a name by 1994)
• "If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." (Will Rogers)
• "Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened." (Anatole France)
• "Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggie' until you can find a rock." (Will Rogers; an earlier version was credited to Walter Trumbull in 1925)
• "If dogs could talk, it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one." (Andy Rooney)
• "You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'Wow, you're right!'" (Dave Barry)
• "My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child." (Rita Rudner; probably hers, but we could not open a text of her telling it)
• "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; attributed in a 1964 study of his work, but we could not find his original)

Cat quotes, checked the same way

For the cat people reading a dog page, and for anyone whose household has both. The same rule applies: every line links to its source, and the famous ones with the wrong name are listed after.

• "When I play with my cat who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me? We mutually divert one another with our play." Michel de Montaigne, "Apology for Raimond Sebond," Essays, translated by Charles Cotton. The popular "a pastime to her" version is from a later translation.
• "If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat." Mark Twain, notebook entry, 1894
• "When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction." Mark Twain, the manuscript "An Incident," 1887, unpublished until 2009
• "A home without a cat [...] may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?" Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson, chapter 1, 1894. The cut part is "and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat."
• "Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this; [...] but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed." Samuel Johnson, of his cat Hodge, as recorded by James Boswell, 1791. Boswell adds that Johnson went out himself to buy Hodge oysters.
• "For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry." Christopher Smart, Jubilate Agno, written 1759 to 1763
• "For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery." Christopher Smart, the same poem
• "But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him." Rudyard Kipling, "The Cat That Walked by Himself," Just So Stories, 1902
• ""Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin," thought Alice; "but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!"" Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865
• "The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, / It isn't just one of your holiday games" T. S. Eliot, "The Naming of Cats," Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, 1939
• "So first, your memory I'll jog, / And say: A CAT IS NOT A DOG." T. S. Eliot, "The Ad-dressing of Cats," 1939
• "But, taken altogether, cats are libeled. Make a friend of one, and she will stick to you through thick and thin." Jerome K. Jerome, "On Cats and Dogs," 1886
• "I do like cats. They are so unconsciously amusing. There is such a comic dignity about them, such a "How dare you!" "Go away, don't touch me" sort of air." Jerome K. Jerome, "On Vanity and Vanities," 1886
• "They are quite willing to be friends, if you prove worthy of their friendship, but they decline to be slaves." Théophile Gautier, My Private Menagerie, translated by F. C. de Sumichrast
• "What sort of philosophers are we who know absolutely nothing of the origin & destiny of cats?" Henry David Thoreau, journal, December 12, 1856
• ""A cat has absolute emotional honesty, Baron," he told me once. [...] "People hide their feelings for various reasons, but cats never do."" Ernest Hemingway, as remembered by his brother Leicester in My Brother, Ernest Hemingway, 1961. The smoother version on most lists is a 1979 paraphrase.
• "Cats, as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in Ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods." P. G. Wodehouse, "The Story of Webster," Mulliner Nights, 1933
• "Humans, eh? Think they're lords of creation. Not like us cats. We know we are. Ever see a cat feed a human? Case proven." Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, 2001
• "He had the faculty of making us glad to get home." Charles Dudley Warner, "Calvin, A Study of Character," 1880, about his cat
• "He was always with him, and used to follow him about the garden like a dog, and sit with him while he wrote." Mamie Dickens, My Father as I Recall Him, 1896, about Charles Dickens's deaf cat
• "You may love a dog but the cat commands your respect." William Lyon Phelps, Autobiography with Letters, 1939
• "With a dog, you feed him, you give him plenty of affection, you take him for walks and he thinks, "Wow, this guy must be a god." With a cat, however, you feed him, you love him, you care for him and he thinks, "Wow, I must be a god."" A Reader's Digest reader, Brian K. Lebowitz, May 1994, the earliest full version Quote Investigator found. Christopher Hitchens told it in 2007.

The cat lines with the wrong name on them: "Time spent with cats is never wasted" has no known author and is not Freud's, who wrote to Arnold Zweig, "I, as is well known, do not like cats." "In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this" is not Terry Pratchett's. "What greater gift than the love of a cat?" is not in Dickens. "Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, pigs treat us as equals" is on the International Churchill Society's list of lines Churchill never said in that form. And we found no source for Leonardo da Vinci's "The smallest feline is a masterpiece," though he did fill a sheet with more than twenty drawings of cats and lions around 1517. More for cat households is in our gifts for cat lovers guide.

Dog captions for photos

Written for this page, so they carry no name. Short enough to read at a glance under a photo.

• Head of security, off duty.
• Professional napper. Amateur listener.
• Mud: 1. Bath: 0.
• Proof that the dog bed is decorative.
• Sat for this photo for exactly one treat.
• The good boy, in his natural habitat (the sofa).
• Twelve pounds of opinions.
• She heard the cheese drawer from two rooms away.
• Every walk is the best walk.
• Not spoiled, just well informed about the treat jar.
• Day one home, and he already owns the place.
• Gray muzzle, same tail.
• He doesn't know it's his birthday. He knows about the cake.
• Every squirrel is the first squirrel.

What should you write in a sympathy card for a dog?

Name the dog, and say one specific thing about them. People who have just lost a dog hear "sorry for your loss" all week; what lands is the detail that proves someone else noticed who the dog was. Keep it to three or four sentences, and don't compare it to losses of your own. A short quote works best as the opening line, with the dog's name and your own sentence underneath. Galsworthy's "they carry away with them so many years of our own lives" and Lampman's line about burying a good dog in the heart of its master both do this well. These are ours:

• I'm so sorry about Biscuit. He was the best greeter on the street, and the street is quieter without him.
• Thinking of you and Luna today. She had a very good life, and you were the best part of it.
• No need to reply. I just wanted you to know I'm thinking of you, and of him.
• Fourteen years of walks, and every one of them better because she was on the other end of the leash.
• He was lucky to be yours, and you were lucky to have him. I'm so sorry.
• I'll miss the way she leaned on everyone's legs. Sending you all our love.
• Some dogs are part of the family. Scout was part of the whole neighborhood.
• For a child who lost a dog: Max knew you were his favorite person. That doesn't stop now.

In three experiments by Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley, people who wrote letters of gratitude underestimated how positive the recipient would feel and overestimated how awkward the recipient would find it. A sympathy note is not a thank-you letter, but the same hesitation stops people sending one. Send it.

What can you write on a dog portrait or memorial?

Something short enough to read from across a room: the dog's name, the years, and a line under ten words. From the sourced lists above, Galsworthy's "It is on our hearts that his life is engraved," Turnbull's "Their only fault, really," Lampman's "in the heart of its master" and O'Neill's "wagging a grateful tail" all trim cleanly. Or use one of ours:

• Our good boy, always.
• First to the door, every single day.
• Best friend, best walks, best years.
• Loved every day of her life.
• Here's to the one who waited at the window.
• Forever the boss of the backyard.

A portrait that keeps your dog's face is the other half of the inscription. Our pet memorial portrait paints your photo as a gentle watercolor in soft garden light, and you can take as long as you need with the proof before deciding anything.

Before anything prints, you approve a watermarked proof, and you can ask for changes or walk away at that point. The photo is deleted within 24 hours of fulfillment and is never used to train AI. US shipping is free, and a defect gets a free reprint.

Frequently asked questions

For the other quote list we have checked line by line, see our Thanksgiving quotes and who said them.