Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Dog
Non stuzzicare il can che dorme.
Do not disturb the sleeping dog.
Alessandro Allegri—Rime e Prose. (1754).
Il fait mal éveiller le chien qui dort.
It is bad to awaken a sleeping dog.
From a MS. of 13th Cen. in Le Roux de Lincy’s Collection, Vol. I. P. 108; Vol. II. P. 392. La Guerre de Genève. Poem. (1534). Franck—Sprichwörter. (1541). An earlier version in Ignaz von Zingerle—Sprichwörter im Mittelalter. For Earlier idea, with cat substituted; see Gabriel Meurier—Trésor des Sentences; Nuñez de Guzman—Refranes, Salamanca. Wake not a sleeping lion. Countryman’s New Commonwealth. (1647). Wake not a sleeping wolf. Henry IV. Pt. II. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 174. Henry VIII. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 121.
He was such a dear little cock-tailed pup.
Barham—Mr. Peter’s Story.
Qui me amat, amet et canem meum.
Who loves me will love my dog also.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux—Sermo Primus. Chapman—Widows’ Tears. Erasmus—Adagia. Heywood—Proverbs. Pt. II. Ch. IX.
Mother of dead dogs.
Quoted by Carlyle in Reminiscences. Vol. I. P. 257; Vol. II. P. 54. Froude’s ed. Also in Life in London. (Froude.) Vol. I. P. 196.
On the green banks of Shannon, when Sheelah was nigh,
No blithe Irish lad was so happy as I;
No harp like my own could so cheerily play,
And wherever I went was my poor dog Tray.
Campbell—The Harper.
His faithful dog salutes the smiling guest.
Campbell—Pleasures of Hope. Pt. I. L. 86.
It is nought good a sleeping hound to wake.
Chaucer—Troylus and Crysede. III. 764.
A living dog is better than a dead lion.
Ecclesiastes. IX. 4.
Old dog Tray’s ever faithful;
Grief can not drive him away;
He is gentle, he is kind—
I shall never, never find
A better friend than old dog Tray!
Stephen C. Foster—Old Dog Tray.
And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound,
And curs of low degree.
Goldsmith—Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog.
Plus on apprend a connaître l’homme, plus on apprend à estimer le chien.
The more one comes to know men, the more one comes to admire the dog.
Joussenel, quoted by Paul Franche—La Legende Dorée des Bêtes. P. 191. The saying is attributed generally to Mme. de Sévigné. Belloy—Siege de Calais, says: Ce qu’il y a de mieux dans l’homme, c’est le chien. Quoted in this form by Voltaire.
Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?
II Kings. VIII. 13.
There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Kipling—The Power of the Dog.
Plus je vois des représentants du peuple, plus j’aime mes chiens.
The more I see the representatives of the people, the more I love my dogs.
Lamartine. Quoted in a letter from Comte Alfred d’Orsay to John Forster. (1850). See Notes and Queries, Oct. 3, 1908. P. 273.
Qui m’aime il aime mon chien.
Who loves me loves my dog.
Le Roux de Lincy—French Proverbs. Gives date 13th Cent. In Tresor de Jeh. de Meung. Vers. 1,567.
But in some canine Paradise
Your wraith, I know, rebukes the moon,
And quarters every plain and hill,
Seeking its master.***As for me
This prayer at least the gods fulfill
That when I pass the flood and see
Old Charon by Stygian coast
Take toll of all the shades who land,
Your little, faithful barking ghost
May leap to lick my phantom hand.
St. John Lucas—To a Dog.
The dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.
Matthew. XV. 27.
Whosoever loveth me loveth my hound.
Sir Thomas More—First Sermon on the Lord’s Prayer.
The dog is turned to his own vomit again.
II Peter. II. 22.
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Go wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy opinion against Providence.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. I. L. 109.
I am his Highness’ dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
Pope—Epigrams. On the Collar of a Dog.
Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
Pope—Letters to and from H. Cromwell, Esq. Letter X. Oct. 9, 1709.
Canis timidus vehementius latrat quam mordet.
The cowardly dog barks more violently than it bites.
Quintus Curtius—De Rebus Best. Alexand. Magn. VII. 14.
I have a dog of Blenheim birth,
With fine long ears and full of mirth;
And sometimes, running o’er the plain,
He tumbles on his nose:
But quickly jumping up again,
Like lightning on he goes!
Ruskin—My Dog Dash.
The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.
King Lear. Act III. Sc. 6. L. 65.
Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?
King Lear. Act IV. Sc. 6. L. 159.
We are two travellers, Roger and I.
Roger’s my dog—come here, you scamp!
Jump for the gentleman—mind your eye!
Over the table,—look out for the lamp!
The rogue is growing a little old;
Five years we’ve tramped through wind and weather,
And slept out-doors when nights were cold,
And ate and drank and starved together.
John T. Trowbridge—The Vagabonds.
Gentlemen of the Jury: The one, absolute, 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.
Senator Geo. Graham Vest—Eulogy on the Dog. Found in Elbert Hubbard’s Pig-Pen Pete. P. 178.