It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog.

It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that matters. | "Stub Ends of Thoughts" by Arthur G. Lewis, a collection of sayings, in Book of the Royal Blue Vol. 14, No. 7 (April 1911), cited as the earliest known occurrence in The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs, edited by Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R. Shapiro, p. 232 | It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that wins. | Anonymous quote in the evening edition of the East Oregonian (20 April 1911) | 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, declaring his particular variant on the proverbial assertion in Remarks at Republican National Committee Breakfast (31 January 1958)