Quoting Famous People Speaking About Cats

'A cat is there when you call her - if she doesn't have something better to do.' - Bill Adler

‘A cat sleeps fat, yet walks thin.' - Fred Schwab

‘Again I must remind you that
A Dog's a Dog - A Cat's a Cat.' - T. S. Eliot

'A friend who truly knows you is always with you.' - Chinese proverb

'A great talker uses few words.' - Mencius

'A house without either a dog or a cat is the house of a scoundrel.' - Portuguese Proverb

‘A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatsoever, and generally stopping before it gets there.' - Agnes Repplier

'A kitten is the delight of a household.' - Jules Feury-Husson Champfleury (1821-1889) French writer

'A little drowsing cat is an image of perfect beatitude.' - Jules Feury-Husson Champfleury (1821-1889) French writer

‘"All right," said the (Cheshire) Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.' - Lewis Carroll

‘All your wondrous wealth of hair,
Dark and fair,
Silken-shaggy, soft and bright
As the clouds and beams of night,
Pays my reverent hand's caress
Back with friendlier gentleness.' -Algernon Swinburne

'A man possessed a cat on which he doted. So fine she was, so soft, so silky-coated.' - Jean de la Fontaine, French Poet

'A man waits on a cat hand and foot for weeks, humouring its lightest whim, and it goes and leaves him flat because it has found a place down the road where fish is more frequent.' - P G Wodehouse

'An ordinary kitten will ask more questions than any five-year-old.' Carl Van Vechten, writer and photographer

Any cat who misses a mouse pretends it was aiming for the dead leaf. - Charlotte Grey, author

'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?' - Fernand Mery (1897 - 1984) French writer

‘As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human mind.' Cleveland Amory

'As we make our resolutions for the year ahead, let us go forward with great hope that all things can be possible.' - Anonymous, from 'To Start a New Year'

‘Before a Cat will condescend
To treat you as a trusted friend,
Some little token of esteem
Is needed, like a dish of cream.' - T.S. Eliot

'Beware of people who dislike cats.' - Irish Proverb

'But to see her was to love but her and lover forever.' - Robert Burns

'C was a lovely pussy cat
Its eyes were large and pale;
And on its back it had some stripes
And several on its tail.' - Edward Lear

'Cats always know whether people like or dislike them. They do not always care enough to do anything about it.' - Winifred Carriere

'Cats are glorious creatures who must on no account be underestimated ... Their eyes are fathomless depths of cat mysteries.' - Lesley Anne Ivory

'Cats are a mysterious kind of folk. There is more passing their minds than we are aware.' - Mark Twain.

'Cats are smarter than dogs. You can not get eight cats to pull a sled in the snow.' - Jeff Valdez, American writer

'Cats are the ultimate narcissists. You can tell this because of the time they spend on personal grooming. Dogs aren't like this. A dog's idea of personal grooming is to roll in dead fish.' - James Gorman, American writer

'Cats, as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in Ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods. This makes them prone to set themselves up as critics and censors of the frail and erring human beings whose lot they share.' - P. G. Wodehouse (1881 - 1975) British-born American writer.

‘Cats can be very funny, and have the oddest ways of showing they're glad to see you. Rudimace always peed in our shoes.' - W.H. Auden

'Cats do not have to be shown how to have a good time, for they are unfailingly ingenious in that respect.' - James Mason

'Cats hate a closed door, you know, regardless of which side they're on. If they're out, they want to get in, and if they're in, they want to get out.' - Lilian Jackson Braun (1916 - ) American writer

'... cats invented self-esteem; there is not an insecure bone in their body.' - Erma Brombeck (1927 - 1996) American writer and humourist

'Cats make one of the most satisfying sounds in the world: they purr ... A purring cat is a form of high praise, like a gold star on a test paper. It is reinforcement of something we would all like to believe about ourselves - that we are nice.' - Roger A Caras (1928 - ) American writer

‘Cats must have three names - an everyday name, such as Peter; a more particular, dignified name, such as Quaxo, Bombalurina, or Jellylorum; and thirdly, the name the cat thinks up for himself, his deep and inscrutable singular Name.' - T.S. Eliot

'Cat said: "I am not a friend and I am not a servant. I am the cat who walks by himself and I wish to come into your cave."' - Rudyard Kipling

'Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God.' - origin unknown

‘Dogs comes when called. A cat takes a message and gets back to you.' - Warren Eckstein, American cat expert

'Even overweight cats instinctively know the cardinal rule: when fat, arrange yourself in slim poses.' - John Weitz, (1923 - ) American writer

'Gather kittens while you may,
Time brings only sorrow:
And the kittens of today
Will be old cats tomorrow.' - Oliver Herford

'God created the cat so that man may know the pleasure of caressing the tiger.' - Fernand Mery (1897 - 1984) French writer

'Graceful movements touched with pride, a calming presence by our side.

A friendship that takes time to grow, small wonder why we love them so.' - Author unknown

‘He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.' - Rudyard Kipling

'I am Cat,
I am honourable,
I have pride,
I have dignity,
For I am older than you.' - Paul Gallico

‘I am the cat of cats, I am
The everlasting cat!
Cunning, and old, and sleek as jam,
The everlasting cat.
Cunning, and old, and sleek as jam,
The everlasting cat!I hunt the vermin in the night -
The everlasting cat!
For I see best without the light -
The everlasting cat!' - Anonymous

'Idling has always been my strong point. I take no credit to myself - it is a gift.' - Jerome K Jerome

‘If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man, but deteriorate the cat.' -Mark Twain

'I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little they become its visible soul.' - Jean Cocteau, French poet, novelist and artist

'In a cat's eyes, all things belong to cats.' - English Proverb

'In the beginning, God created man, but seeing him so feeble, He gave him the cat.' - Warren Eckstein, American cat expert

'It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.' - Henry David Thoreau, Author and philosopher (1817 - 1862)

'It was difficult to be vexed by a creature that burst into a chorus of purring as soon as I spoke to him.' - Philip Brown - English writer

'Kittens believe that all nature is occupied with their diversion.' - Augustin-Parais de Moncrif

'Life is travelling to the edge of knowledge, then a leap taken.' - D. H. Lawrence

'"Meow" is like "Aloha" - it can mean anything.' - Hank Ketchum (1920 - ) American cartoonist

'Next to a wife whom I idolise, give me a cat.' - Mark Twain

‘Nothing's more playful than a young cat, nor more grave than an old one.' - Thomas Fuller

'Of course, every cat is really the most beautiful woman in the room.' - Edward Verrall Luca, essayist

‘Oh cat; I'd say, or pray: be-ootiful cat! Delicious cat! Exquisite cat! Satiny Cat! Cat like a soft owl, cat with paws like moths, jewelled cat, miraculous cat! Cat, cat, cat, cat.' - Doris Lessing

'She sits composedly sentinel, with paws tucked under her a good part of her days at present, by some ridiculous little hole, the possible entry of a mouse.' - Henry David Thoreau

'Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.' - A Zen saying

‘Someone once said that a dog looked up to a man as its superior, that a horse regarded a man as its equal, and that the cat looked down on him as its inferior.' - Compton MacKenzie

'Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well.' - Missy Dizick, American writer

‘The best way to get on with a cat is to treat it as an equal - or even better, as the superior it knows itself to be.' - Elizabeth Peters

'The cat always leaves a mark on his friend.' - Aesop (620 - 560 B.C.) Greek fabulist

'The cat has nine lives, three for playing, three for straying, and three for staying.' - Old English Proverb

'The cat is a character of being; the dog, a character of doing.' - Michael J Rosen (1954-) American editor

'"The day is young," said the cat, remembering that he could wait.' - Russian proverb

‘The Egyptians have observed, in the eyes of a cat, the increase of the moonlight.' - Edward Topsell

'The flowers think they are more beautiful than we,

But they are wrong.' - Paul Gallico

'The ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat.' - Jules Reynard

'The playful kitten, with its pretty little tigerish gambols, is infinitely more amusing than half the people one is obliged to live with in the world.' - Lady Sydney Morgan (1783 - 1859)

'The trouble with kittens is that eventually they grow up to be cats.' - Ogden Nash

'There are no ordinary cats.' - Colette

'There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.' - Albert Schweitzer (1875 - 1963) French philosopher, physician and music scholar

‘There is no more an intrepid explorer than a kitten.' - Jules Champfleury

‘There is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest. For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.' - Christopher Smart

'Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this.' - Anonymous

'Time spent with a cat is never wasted.' - Colette

'To live long, eat like a cat; drink like a dog.' - German Proverb

‘To Someone Very good and Just,
Who has proved worthy of her trust,
A Cat will sometimes condescend -
The Dog is Everybody's Friend.' - Oliver Herford

‘Two things are aesthetically perfect in the world - the clock and the cat.' - Emile-August Chartier

‘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

'What greater gift than the love of a cat?' - Charles Dickens

'When I meow, it means ... I am hungry ... I want food in my bowl ...I want food in my bowl right now ... I want to go out ... I want to come in ... Brush me ... Get my cat toy out from under the sofa ... It's time to change the litter ... I just put a mouse in the bureau drawer ... I did not break that vase ... Get me down from this tree ... Please kill the dog next door ... Hello ... Good-bye ...' - Henry Beard, American writer

'When it comes to knowing how to relax, cats are the original yoga experts.' - Patricia Curtis (1924 - ) American writer

'When naming a cat, if one's imagination is totally at a loss, start with a good encyclopaedia. Look up the names of emperors, empresses, kings and queens. Cats, particularly male cats, like strong names which link them to majestic feats.' - Auriel Douglas, American cat owner