What is sport to the cat is death to the mouse.
—German Proverb
Persian pussy from over the sea demure and lazy and smug and fat none of your ribbons and bells for me ours is the zest of the alley cat
—Don Marquis (1878–1937) American Humorist, Journalist, Author
Watch a cat when it enters a room for the first time. It searches and smells about, it is not quiet for a moment, it trusts nothing until it has examined and made acquaintance with everything.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
Cats only pretend to be domesticated if they think there’s a bowl of milk in it for them.
—Robin Williams (b.1951) American Actor, Comedian
We love kitties, gawd bless their little whiskers, and we don’t give a damn whether they or we are superior or inferior! They’re confounded pretty, and that’s all we know and all we need to know!
—H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American Science-fiction Writer
A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
The ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat.
—Jules Renard (1864–1910) French Writer, Diarist
Bragging is not an attractive trait, but let’s be honest. A man who catches a big fish doesn’t go home through an alley.
—Ask Ann Landers (1918–2002) American Advice Columnist
Cats are a mysterious kind of folk. There is more passing in their minds than we are aware of.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
The dog may be wonderful prose, but only the cat is poetry.
—French Proverb
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
—Robert A. Heinlein (1907–88) American Science Fiction Writer
If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.
—Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British Novelist, Poet
If you want to be a psychological novelist and write about human beings, the best thing you can do is keep a pair of cats.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Never try to outstubborn a cat.
—Robert A. Heinlein (1907–88) American Science Fiction Writer
You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats.
—Common Proverb
It’s better to feed one cat than many mice.
—Norwegian Proverb
In a cat’s eye, all things belong to cats.
—English Proverb
If there is one spot of sun spilling onto the floor, a cat will find it and soak it up.
—Unknown
When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime for her more than she is to me?
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
The cat loves fish, but she’s loath to wet her feet.
—Common Proverb
Both ardent lovers and austere scholars, when once they come to the years of discretion, love cats, so strong and gentle, the pride of the household, who like them are sensitive to the cold, and sedentary.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.
—Robertson Davies (1913–95) Canadian Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
A home without a cat—and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat—may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
A cat is a tiger that is fed by hand.
—Common Proverb
One small cat changes coming home to an empty house to coming home.
—Pam Brown (b.1948) Australian Poet
Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience.
—Pam Brown (b.1948) Australian Poet
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
Cats always seem so very wise, when staring with their half-closed eyes. Can they be thinking, “I’ll be nice, and maybe she will feed me twice?”
—Bette Midler (b.1945) American Actress, Singer
It’s too dangerous a journey to risk the cat’s life.
—Charles Lindbergh (1902–74) American Aviator, Inventor, Conservationist
Your rat tail is all the fashion now. I prefer a bushy plume, carried straight up. You are Siamese and your ancestors lived in trees. Mine lived in palaces. It has been suggested to me that I am a bit of a snob. How true! I prefer to be.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
Take a cat, nourish it well with milk
And tender meat, make it a couch of silk,
But let it see a mouse along the wall
And it abandones milk and meat and all.
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) English Poet, Philosopher, Diplomat, Bureaucrat
I urged that kings were dangerous. He said, then have cats. He was sure that a royal family of cats would answer every purpose. They would be as useful as any other royal family, they would know as much, they would have the same virtues and the same treacheries, the same disposition to get up shindies with other royal cats, they would be laughably vain and absurd and never know it, they would be wholly inexpensive, finally, they would have as sound a divine right as any other royal house…The worship of royalty being founded in unreason, these graceful and harmless cats would easily become as sacred as any other royalties, and indeed more so, because it would presently be noticed that they hanged nobody, beheaded nobody, imprisoned nobody, inflicted no cruelties or injustices of any sort, and so must be worthy of a deeper love and reverence than the customary human king, and would certainly get it.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The way to keep a cat is to try to chase it away.
—E. W. Howe (1853–1937) American Novelist, Editor
When the cat’s away, the mice will play.
—English Proverb
Those who’ll play with cats must expect to be scratched.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
The smallest feline is a masterpiece.
—Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Polymath, Painter, Sculptor, Inventor, Architect
If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
A cat is a lion in a jungle of small bushes.
—Indian Proverb
Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.
—Garrison Keillor (b.1942) American Author, Humorist, Radio Personality
Time spent with cats is never wasted.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
A cat bitten once by a snake dreads even rope.
—Arabic Proverb
I said something which gave you to think I hated cats. But gad, sir, I am one of the most fanatical cat lovers in the business. If you hate them, I may learn to hate you. If your allergies hate them, I will tolerate the situation to the best of my ability.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that whatever you say to them, they always purr.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (1832–98) British Anglican Author, Mathematician, Clergyman, Photographer, Logician
There are no ordinary cats.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
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 the cat, it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.
—Jules Verne (1828–1905) French Novelist
Cats never strike a pose that isn’t photogenic.
—Lilian Jackson Braun (1913–2011) American Mystery Novelist
Beware of people who dislike cats
—Irish Proverb