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Famous (and not so famous) quotations about cats

• Mark Twain:
  "Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with a cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat."

• Doug Larson:
  "The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop to admitting it."

• Steven Wright:
  "If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happen if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it?"
  "Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."

• Sir Julian Huxley:
  "Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat."

• Jeff Valdez:
  "Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow."

• Solomon Short:  
  "Any great truth can and eventually will be expressed as a cliche a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance, my grandmother used to say, 'The black cat is always the last one off the fence.' I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was undoubtedly true."

• Winston Churchill:
  "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

• Abraham Lincoln:  
  "No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens."

• Missy Dizick:  
  "Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well."

• Alfred North Whitehead:
  "If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer."

• Anonymous:  
  "Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London: Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall be liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind person shall be deemed to be a cat."
  "There are many intelligent species in the universe. They all own cats."
  "Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function."
  "The more people I meet the more I like my cat."
  "It's very hard to be polite if you're a cat."
  "In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods, they have never forgotten this."

• William Shakespeare. (Hamlet):  
  "Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew and dog will have his day."

• Jonathan Swift:
   "I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs. "
  "She watches him as a cat would watch a mouse. "

• Miguel de Cervantes:  
  "In the night all cats are gray."

• Michael de Montaigne:  
  "When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?"

• Henry Carey:  
  "What a monstrous tail our cat has got! " (The Dragon of Wantley. Act ii. Sc. 1. )

• Jean Cocteau
  "I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul."

• Colette
  "By associating with the cat one only risks becoming richer."

• Norman Corwin
  "Cats are designated friends."

• Leonardo Da Vinci
  "The smallest feline is a masterpiece."

• Oliver Herford
  "Cat: A pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronizes human beings."

• Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes
  "Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words, and the president of the sovereign chiefs and the governor of the holy Circle; thou art indeed...the Great Cat."

• Robert Byrne
  "To err is human, to purr is feline."

• Samuel Butler
  "They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, "Can he name a kitten?"

• Hippolyte Taine
  "I've met many thinkers and many cats, but the wisdom of cats is infinitely superior."

• Roger A. Caras
  "Cats don't like change without their consent."

• Jean Burden
  "Prowling his own quiet backyard or asleep by the fire, he is still only a whisker away from the wilds."

• Carl Van Vechten
  "An ordinary kitten will ask more questions than any five year old."

• Ellen Perry Berkeley
  "As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat."

• Nan Porter
  "If cats could talk, they wouldn't."

• Monica Edwards
  "Purring would seem to be, in her case, an automatic safety-valve device for dealing with happiness overflow."

• Joseph Epstein
  "A cat is the only domestic animal I know who toilet trains itself and does a damned impressive job of it."

• Colette
  "There are no ordinary cats."

• George Will
  "The phrase 'domestic cat' is an oxymoron."

• Fernand Mery
  "God made the cat in order that man might have the pleasure of caressing the tiger."

• Ernest Menaul
  "The cat has too much spirit to have no heart."

• Stephen Baker
  "To bathe a cat takes brute force, perseverance, courage of conviction and a cat. The last ingredient is usually hardest to come by."

• Louis J. Camuti, DVM
  "Cat people are different, to the extent that they generally are not conformists. How could they be, with a cat running their lives?"

• George F. Will
  "Like a graceful vase, a cat, even when motionless, seems to flow."

• Hazel Nicholson
  "A cat is a puzzle for which there is no solution."

• John R.F. Breen
  "As we all know, cats now rule the world."

• W.L. George
  "Cats know how to obtain food without labor, shelter without confinement, and love without penalties."

• Joseph Wood Krutch
  "Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want."

• Carl Van Vechten
  "There is, indeed, no single quality of the cat that man could not emulate to his advantage."

• Robert A. Heinlein
  "How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven."

• Theophile Gautier
  "If you are worthy of its affection, a cat will be your friend but never your slave."
  "It is difficult to obtain the friendship of a cat. It is a philosophical animal...one that does not place its affections thoughtlessly."
  "Who can believe that there is no soul behind those luminous eyes!"

• Carl Van Vechten
  "There is, indeed, no single quality of the cat that man could not emulate to his advantage."

• Joseph Wood Krutch
  "Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many different ailments, but I have never heard of one who suffered from insomnia."

• Christopher Smart
  "There is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest, for there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion."

• Irving Townsend
  "Unlike us, cats never outgrow their delight in cat capacities, nor do they settle finally for limitations. Cats, I think, live out their lives fulfilling their expectations."

• John Dingman
  "Cats are absolute individuals, with their own ideas about everything, including the people they own."

• William Shakespeare, Henry IV
  "I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream."

• Beverly Nichols
  "Most of us rather like our cats to have a streak of wickedness. I should not feel quite easy in the company of any cat that walked about the house with a saintly expression…"

• James Gorman
  "Cats are the ultimate narcissists. You can tell this because of all the time they spend on personal grooming. Dogs aren't like this. dog's idea of personal grooming is to roll in a dead fish."

• Eleanor Farjeon
  "Cats sleep Anywhere, Any table, Any chair, Top of piano, Window-ledge, In the middle, On the edge."

• Jerome K. Jerome
  "A cat's got her own opinion of human beings. She don't say much, but you can tell enough to make you anxious not to hear the whole of it."

• James Herriot
  "Cats are connoisseurs of comfort."

• Eleanora Walker
  "Do our cats name us? My former husband swore that Humphrey and Dolly and Bean Blossom called me The Big Hamburger."

• P.G. Wodehouse
  "The trouble with cats is that they've got no tact."

• Bruce Schimmel
  "The little furry buggers are just deep, deep wells you throw all your emotions into."

• The Ancren Riewle (Nun's Rule)
  "Ye shall not possess any beast, my dear sisters, except only a cat."

• Sarah Orne Jewett
  "When she walked...she stretched out long and thin like a little tiger, and held her head high to look over the grass as if she were treading the jungle."

• Michel de Montaigne
  "When I play with my cat who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?"

• Albert Einstein
  "A man has to work so hard so that something of his personality stays alive. A tomcat has it so easy, he has only to spray and his presence is there for years on rainy days."

• Pierre Loti
  "It is with the approach of winter that cats...wear their richest fur and assume an air of sumptuous and delightful opulence."

• Wesley Bates
  "There's no need for a piece of sculpture in a home that has a cat."

• Roy Blount, Jr.
  "If a cat spoke, it would say things like, 'Hey, I don't see the problem here.'"

• Jim Davis
  "Way down deep, we're all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them."

• H. G. Frommer
  "The smart cat doesn't let on that he is."

• Colette
  "My cat does not talk as respectfully to me as I do to her."

• Joseph Wood Krutch
  "Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want."

• Fernand Mery
  "Are cats lazy? Well, more power to them if they are. Which one of us has not entertained the dream of doing just as he likes, when and how he likes, and as much as he likes?"

• Unknown
  "In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods, they have never forgotten this."

• Robertson Davies
  "Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons."

• Jim Davis
  "Way down deep, we're all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them."

• Eleasar B. Zadok
  "A dog knows his master, a cat does not"

• Winifred Carriere
  "The cat is the mirror of his human's mind… the dog mirrors his human's physical appearance."

• In the beginning of the 20th century, before the famous Russian Orthodox monastery Optina Pustyn was "liquidated" by the Bolsheviks, one of its last staretzes (elders), Nektary, used to caress his cat and say:
  "After their death, all the cats get into the Paradise, because during the deluge, when all the remaining people and animals were in Noah's Ark, the devil wanted to destroy all of them and turned himself into a mouse and started gnawing at the bottom of the Ark, but a cat noticed it and caught the devil and thus mankind (and animals) were saved by a cat."

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