Quotes about cats
page 5

“Life cannot be reconciled with the idea that back of the universe is a Supreme Being, all merciful and kind, and that he takes any account of the human beings and other forms of life that exist upon the earth. Whichever way man may look upon the earth, he is oppressed with the suffering incident to life. It would almost seem as though the earth had been created with malignity and hatred. If we look at what we are pleased to call the lower animals, we behold a universal carnage. We speak of the seemingly peaceful woods, but we need only look beneath the surface to be horrified by the misery of that underworld. Hidden in the grass and watching for its prey is the crawling snake which swiftly darts upon the toad or mouse and gradually swallows it alive; the hapless animal is crushed by the jaws and covered with slime, to be slowly digested in furnishing a meal. The snake knows nothing about sin or pain inflicted upon another; he automatically grabs insects and mice and frogs to preserve his life. The spider carefully weaves his web to catch the unwary fly, winds him into the fatal net until paralyzed and helpless, then drinks his blood and leaves him an empty shell. The hawk swoops down and snatches a chicken and carries it to its nest to feed its young. The wolf pounces on the lamb and tears it to shreds. The cat watches at the hole of the mouse until the mouse cautiously comes out, then with seeming fiendish glee he plays with it until tired of the game, then crushes it to death in his jaws. The beasts of the jungle roam by day and night to find their prey; the lion is endowed with strength of limb and fang to destroy and devour almost any animal that it can surprise or overtake. There is no place in the woods or air or sea where all life is not a carnage of death in terror and agony. Each animal is a hunter, and in turn is hunted, by day and night. No landscape is beautiful or day so balmy but the cry of suffering and sacrifice rends the air. When night settles down over the earth the slaughter is not abated. Some creatures are best at night, and the outcry of the dying and terrified is always on the wind. Almost all animals meet death by violence and through the most agonizing pain. With the whole animal creation there is nothing like a peaceful death. Nowhere in nature is there the slightest evidence of kindness, of consideration, or a feeling for the suffering and the weak, except in the narrow circle of brief family life.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Source: The Story of My Life (1932), p. 383

Life, Death, Pain, Family

“I abominate any organization that denies cats are people!”

Fritz Leiber book The Wanderer

Source: The Wanderer (1964), Chapter 3.

People

“Time spent with cats is never wasted.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Frequently attributed to Freud, but there is no evidence Freud ever said it http://www.freud.org.uk/about/faq/. Misattributed

Time, For Mother

“Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Three Men in a Boat

Source: Three Men in a Boat (1889), Ch. 3.

Love, Life, Pleasure, Dogs

“I always loved the grand dichotomies of life. Dogs and cats. Cats and mice. Like Tom and Jerry. But as someone who grew up in Central Europe I never understood how a mouse can live inside a wall. Walls are made of bricks! They are not hollow. Way later I came to understand, when I learned that US-American houses are just made of wood, and their walls are really hollow.”

Johannes Grenzfurthner (1975) Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film director

from documentary Traceroute

Love, Life, Dogs, Way

“Letting the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than putting it back.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

The Manly Wisdom of Will Rogers (2001)

“Like most people, I spent my childhood eating meat, wearing leather, and loving the cats, dogs, and mice I grew up with — and not once recognizing that I was treating some animals with respect and others as faceless commodities. I was well into adulthood before I understood that such an inconsistency is as ridiculous as it is unjust. The truth is, we have an impoverished understanding of the animals we share this planet with, and that has led to more than a little hubris on our part. … Humanity's abuse of animals can be merciless in the extreme, and in trying to relate such cruelties faithfully, I have written about incidents and industry practices that may disgust you. But it is crucial that we see beyond the veil that hides this world of suffering from us. Equally important, we need to know that there is some optimism amid all the despair. And so we begin with a story of hope.”

Mark Hawthorne (author) (1962) American activist

Bleating Hearts: The Hidden World of Animal Suffering (Changemakers Books, 2013), Introduction https://books.google.it/books?id=mXHvAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT15.

Love, People, Truth, World

“(Dr. Paul Johns, animal linguist, on cats) It seems their entire language consists of two phrases, uttered with varying degrees of intensity: "Hurry that dinner, willya" and "Everything here is mine."”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 35

Animals

“In my experience women are like cats. When you don't want them you can't get rid of them and when you do want them it's like trying to pick up lint with a magnet. (p. 267)”

Dave Sim (1956) Canadian cartoonist, creator of Cerebus

Collected Letters 2004

Women

“These cats drink champagne and toast to death and pain,
Like slaves on a ship talking about who's got the flyest chain”

Talib Kweli (1975) American rapper

Africa Dream (track 8)
Albums, Reflection Eternal (2000)

Death, Pain, Drink

“Sam swallowed. The dire pronouncement echoed in his ears, imbued with the faint hint of the Free Magic power that was contained within the cat form on his shoulder. He slapped Sprout on the rump to get her going; then he said the first thing that came into his head.
"Mogget. Shut up."”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy), Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr (2001), p. 381.

“A dumb halo of sorrow lurks in Shirin's cold gaze,
Reclining on the marble columns of the veranda,
A pregnant cat is sleeping on her lap
And slowly snores.

The Shirin's image north of the garden
Is hanging on an apple tree;
Khosrow, in love with another mistress, mockingly mutters;
How can the eye in this image
Show the trace of lover breathing eye of Shirin?…??
For a moment Khosrow beats at the bow and says:
Shirin's eye is a good target, I have ordained
That this new bow should be tried on it.

Khosrow, the king of the world,
The master of archers,
Pulled out an arrow from his quiver.
This Parthian arrow, this nimble flying hawk,
Is familiar with the bow and the thumb.

A spark rose from Mount Bistoun,
Was it the lightening from Farhad's ax?
An angry flame is blazing in the image's eye,
The loud uproar,
The loud clamor of Farhad's heart,
Is robing sleep from the cat's eye.”

Farrokh Tamimi (1934–2003) Iranian poet and translator

Poet, Farhad

Love, World, Lovers, Sleep

“You're a real bastard," Obie said finally, his frustration erupting, like a Coke exploding from a bottle after you shake it. "You know that?" Archie turned and smiled at him benevolently, like a goddamn king passing out favors. "Jesus," Obie said, exasperated. "Don't swear, Obie," Archie chided him. "You'll have to tell it in confession." "Look who's talking. I don't know how you had the nerve to receive communion in the chapel this morning." "It doesn't take nerve, Obie. When you march down the rail, you're receiving The Body, man. Me, I'm just chewing a wafer they buy by the pound in Worcester." Obie looked away in disgust. "And when you say 'Jesus', you're talking about your leader. But when I say 'Jesus,' I'm talking about a guy who walked the earth for thirty-three years like any other guy but caught the imagination of some PR cats. PR for Public Relations, in case you don't know, Obie.”

Robert Cormier book The Chocolate War

Obie didn't bother to answer. You couldn't ever win an argument with Archie.
Source: The Chocolate War (1974), p. 8

Smile, Guy, Imagination

“Thou art a cat, and a rat, and a coward.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 8.

Art

“There is a cunning which we in England call "the turning of the cat in the pan;" which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Cunning
Essays (1625)

“Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2007-11-06
The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
Christopher Hitchens
978-0306816086
http://quotes.pink/god/quote-8195/
2000s, 2007

God, Food, Dogs, Thinking

“I was called a fool when I was chair of fashion at Parsons and I invited PETA to speak to students. The industry went crazy. I said: "Wait a minute. The International Fur Trade Commission is coming here. I have a responsibility to bring another point of view, let the students decide." I would say if you're going to use fur, you have a responsibility to know its origins. … There's no reason to kill animals for fur. Wearing fur is like wearing a big sign reading, "I'm in favor of inflicting cruelty and pain on animals as a fashion statement." Unspeakable torture is inflicted on dogs, cats, bunnies, raccoons, foxes, minks and myriad trapped, helpless creatures in the name of fashion — yes, dogs and cats.”

Tim Gunn (1953) American actor and fashion consultant

"Tim Gunn and me" http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/alltherage/2009/11/tim-gunn-and-me.html by Patt Morrison, interview with the Los Angeles Times (23 November 2009).

Pain, Dogs, Fools, Fashion

“They made the predictable fuss about taking a cat into a room and an autobellhop is not responsive to bribes—hardly an improvement. But the assistant manager had more flexibility in his synapses; He listened to reason as long as it was crisp and rustled.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Source: The Door Into Summer (1957), Chapter 12

“Am I the cat that takes the bird?
To her the hunted, not the hunter.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Hounds of Love (1985)

Bird

“(Cat) So she says I can’t have catnip any more because it’s like a drug. So, like, what’s she worried about: I’m not going to do well in school or what?”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 97

School

“Young cat! If you keep
Your eyes open enough,
Oh, the stuff you will learn!
The most wonderful stuff!”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

I Can Read With My Eyes Shut! (1978)

Learning

“Humans are great lovers of consistency, and it annoys us that cats have different rules. Even if a cat is willing to give up her life for you, that does not mean that she is willing to change her mind at your request.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

Source: The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats (2002), Ch. 2

Life, Lovers, Change

“There's a cat that's a stray that's been coming around my house for the last couple of years. … I noticed upon petting her for the very first time that beneath her fur, almost beneath my hand, was ripples and ripples of wounds — amazing — wounds upon wounds and scars upon scars — old, of course, but she had been through it a lot! Anyway, I named her "Has Wounds But Still Lives" … Well a few days ago, she came by, and dry food that I'd put out there was falling from her mouth. And upon closer inspection, it was because this side of her face was practically gone! … And it looked to me as if she could survive it, but it was grisly, it really was — and it brought you to tears, and made you nervous and afraid, and all kinds of things.”

Ysabella Brave (1979) American singer

Has wounds but still lives (2010)

Food, Tear, Time, Housing

“I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2

Dogs

“There is rarely an exception: once a cat makes up her mind to do something, your pleadings matter not at all. A dog, in the same circumstances, no matter how urgently he needs to do something, will change his mind if you insist. He is made for compromise, for self-sacrifice, for thinking about how you feel. Not cats.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

Source: The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats (2002), Ch. 2

Dogs, Feeling, Thinking, Change

“I'm like a chimpanzee, in a tree, jumping up and down, warning other chimpanzees when I see a big cat coming through the woods… I'm the weirdo? Because I'm sitting in a tree going "OOH OOH AAH AAH AAH OOH AAH AAH OOH OOH OOH AAH AAH AAH AAH AAH!"”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

"Internet Wars Between TYT and Alex Jones" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8FUHVLHzVA&feature=youtu.be&t=7m5s, The Young Turks, 18 December 2009. 2009

Tree

“Most human lives are forgotten after four generations. We build our splendid houses on the edge of the abyss then distract and dazzle ourselves with entertainers and sex while we slowly at first, then more rapidly, spin around the ever-thirsty plughole in the middle. My treasured possessions -- all the silly little mementoes and toys and special books I’ve carried with me for decades -- will wind up on flea market tables or rot on garbage heaps. Someone else will inhabit the rooms that were mine. Everything that was important to me will mean nothing to the countless generations that follow our own. In the grand sprawl of it all, I have no significance at all. I don’t believe a giant gaseous pensioner will reward or censure me when my body stops working and I don’t believe individual consciousness survives for long after brain death so I lack the consolations of religion. I wanted Annihilator to peek into that implacable moment where everything we are comes to an end so I had to follow the Black Brick Road all the way down and seriously consider the abject pointlessness of all human endeavours. I found these contemplations thrilling and I was drawn to research pure nihilism, which led me to Ray Brassier’s Nihil Unbound and back to Ligotti. I have a fundamentally optimistic and positive view of human existence and the future and I think it’s important to face intelligent, well-argued challenges to that view on a regular basis. While I agree with Ligotti that the universe is, on the face of it, a blind emergent process, driven by chance over billions of years of trial and error to ultimately produce creatures capable of little more than flamboyant expressions of the agonizing awareness of their own imminent deaths, I don’t share his slightly huffy disappointment at this state of affairs. If the universe is intrinsically meaningless, if the mindless re-arrangement of atomic debris into temporarily arising then dissipating forms has no point, I can only ask, why do I see meaning everywhere, why can I find a point in everything? Why do other human beings like me seem to see meaning in everything too? If the sun is only an apocalyptic series of hydrogen fusion reactions, why does it look like an angel and inspire poetry? Why does the flesh and fur-covered bone and jelly of my cat’s face melt my heart? Is all that surging, roaring incandescent meaning inside me, or is it out there? “Meaning” to me is equivalent to “Magic.” The more significance we bring to things, even to the smallest and least important things, the more special, the more “magical” they seem to become. For all that materialistic science and existential philosophy tells us we live in a chaotic, meaningless universe, the evidence of my senses and the accounts of other human beings seem to indicate that, in fact, the whole universe and everything in it explodes second-to-second with beauty, horror, grandeur and significance when and wherever it comes into contact with consciousness. Therefore, it’s completely down to us to revel in our ability to make meaning, or not. Ligotti, like many extreme Buddhist philosophers, starts from the position that life is an agonizing, heartbreaking grave-bound veil of tears. This seems to be a somewhat hyperbolic view of human life; as far as I can see most of us round here muddle through ignoring death until it comes in close and life’s mostly all right with just enough significant episodes of sheer joy and connection and just enough sh-tty episodes of pain or fear. The notion that the whole span of our lives is no more than some dreadful rehearsal for hell may resonate with the deeply sensitive among us but by and large life is pretty okay generally for most of us. And for some, especially in the developed countries, “okay” equals luxurious. To focus on the moments of pain and fear we all experience and then to pretend they represent the totality of our conscious experience seems to me a little effete and indulgent. Most people don’t get to be born at all, ever. To see in that radiant impossibility only pointlessness, to see our experience as malignantly useless, as Ligotti does, seems to me a bit camp.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

2014
http://www.blastr.com/2014-9-12/grant-morrisons-big-talk-getting-deep-writer-annihilator-multiversity
On life

Life, Death, Pain, People

“When one reads about Tyrannosaurus and Brontosaurus, one is not dealing with species, like lions or African elephants. Instead, these are genera, a group of animal species. For example, the lion is in the genus Panthera. Species of Panthera include the lion Panthera leo, the tiger P. tigris, and the leopard P. pardus, among others. So saying Tyrannosaurus is much like saying "the big cats".”

Gregory Scott Paul (1954) U.S. researcher, author, paleontologist, and illustrator

Gregory S. Paul (1988) Predatory Dinosaurs of the World, Simon and Schuster, p. 176
Predatory Dinosaurs of the World

Reading, Animals

“The truth is that Gandhi-ism and all it stands for will, sooner or later, have to be grappled with, and finally crushed. It is no use trying to satisfy a tiger by feeding him with cat's-meat. The sooner this is realised, the less trouble and misfortune will there be for all concerned.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Cannon Street Hotel, London (12 December 1930) at the first public meeting of the Indian Empire Society, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 377
The 1930s

Truth

“There was a saying of the peasants—the rat cannot call the cat to account. But it was also true that if the moon moves but slowly, still it crosses the city.”

Andre Norton (1912–2005) American writer of science fiction and fantasy

Source: Dragon Magic (1972), Chapter 3, “Sirrush-Lau” (p. 78)

“When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Quand je me joue à ma chatte, qui sait si elle passe son temps de moi, plus que je ne fais d'elle. Book II, Ch. 12 The 1595 edition adds: “We entertain each other with reciprocal monkey tricks. If I have my time to begin or to refuse, so has she hers.” As quoted in Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am https://books.google.it/books?id=y8Drc-QghEIC&pg=PT21, trans. David Wills, Fordham University Press, 2008. Essais (1595), Book II

“Assigning human personalities to animals is the chief trait of the pet owner—the doting dog-lover with his baby talk, the smug stay-at-home with a fat lump of fur on her lap who says, "Me, I'm a cat person," and the granny who puts her nose against the tin cage and makes kissing noises at her parakeet. Their affection is often tinged with a sense of superiority. Deer and duck hunters never talk this way about their prey, though big game hunters— Hemingway is the classic example — often sentimentalize the creatures they blow to bits and then lovingly stuff to hang on the wall.”

Paul Theroux (1941) American travel writer and novelist

Living With Geese.

Dogs, Way, Home, Game

“There is no hard and fast rule as to what makes a successful state-owned enterprise. Therefore, when it comes to SOE management, we need a pragmatic attitude in the spirit of the famous remark by China’s former leader Deng Xiao-ping: 'it does not matter whether the cat is white or black as long as it catches mice.”

Ha-Joon Chang book Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 5, Black cat, white cat, p. 121

Success

“The Beatles may be more popular than Jesus but heavy cats like Chairman Mao, Uncle Ho, and beautiful long-haired Che Guevara are more popular than The Beatles.”

Abbie Hoffman book Woodstock Nation

Down on Me and Janis Joplin
Woodstock Nation (1969)

Beauty

“There's a cat in the window, of the house of my lover.
Well she sleeps there alone now, or perhaps with another.
Oh I try no to think about that, I try not to think at all!”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Insound Tour Support No.12 (2000)

Lovers, Thinking, Sleep, Housing

“I will neither resurrect the past nor return.
Sleep, Romeo, Juliet, on your headrest of stone feathers.
I won't raise your bound hands from the ashes.
Let the cat visit the deserted cathedrals,
its pupil flashing on the altars. Let an owl
nest on the dead ogive.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"Farewell" (1945), trans. Renata Gorczynski and Robert Hass
Rescue (1945)

Sleep, Past, Dead

“The poverty of the lower ranks of people in China far surpasses that of the most beggarly nations of Europe. In the neighbourhood of Canton many hundred, it is commonly said, many thousand families have no habitation on the land, but live constantly in little fishing boats upon the rivers and the canals. The subsistence which they find there is so scanty that they are eager to fish up the nastiest garbage thrown overboard from any European ship. Any carrion, the carcase of a dead dog or cat, for example, though half putrid and stinking, is as welcome to them as the most wholesome food to the people of other countries.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter VIII, p. 86.

People, Family, Food, Dogs

“There are more ways of killing a cat than drowning it in butter; but this is the sort of thing (as the proverb indicates) we overlook: there are more ways of outraging speech than contradiction merely.”

J. L. Austin book How to Do Things with Words

John Langshaw Austin, Marina Sbisà (1975) How to Do Things with Words. p. 48.

Way

“A cat's meow and a cow's moo,
I can recite 'em all,
just tell me where it hurts you, honey,
and I'll tell you who to call.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Self Portrait (1970), Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)

Hurt

“You turned into a cat! A SMALL cat! You violated Conservation of Energy! That's not just an arbitrary rule, it's implied by the form of the quantum Hamiltonian! Rejecting it destroys unitarity and then you get FTL signalling! And cats are COMPLICATED! A human mind can't just visualise a whole cat's anatomy and, and all the cat biochemistry, and what about the neurology? How can you go on thinking using a cat-sized brain?”

Eliezer Yudkowsky Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Harry Potter in Ch. 2 http://www.hpmor.com/chapter/2 Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (2010 - 2015)

Thinking

“As dogs, cats, horses, and probably all the higher animals, even birds, as is stated on good authority, have vivid dreams, and this is shewn by their movements and voice, we must admit that they possess some power of imagination. … Few persons any longer dispute that animals possess some power of reasoning. Animals may constantly be seen to pause, deliberate, and resolve. It is a significant fact, that the more the habits of any particular animal are studied by a naturalist, the more he attributes to reason and the less to unlearnt instincts.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume I, chapter II: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals", page 46 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=59&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image The Descent of Man (1871)

Dogs, Dreams, Imagination, Bird

“Yes, I was suprised how easy it was to cut the door off my cat.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[cbav4b$qqa$1@panix2.panix.com, 2004]
2000s

“Although some dinosaurs may have spent some time feeding in the water like moose or fishing cats, at most a few became strongly amphibious in the manner of hippos, much less marine as per seals and whales. The only strongly aquatic dinosaurs are some birds. The occasional statement that there were marine dinosaurs is therefore incorrect - these creatures of Mesozoic seas were various forms of reptiles that had evolved over the eons.”

Gregory Scott Paul book The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs

Gregory S. Paul (2010) The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Princeton University Press, p. 14
The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs

Bird, Fish, Water, Time

“It wasn't easy tolerating him talking this way to her, to bear his scorn, his ridicule, his insults, his walking past her like she was nothing but a house cat. But after four years of marriage, Mariam saw clearly how much a woman could tolerate when she was afraid. And Mariam was afraid.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Mariam, p. 98
A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

Marriage, Way, Past, Housing

“Certainly, Vollard, but listen: will you have a special dish without butter prepared for me? Mind you, no flowers on the table, and you must have dinner at half past seven sharp. I know you won't have your cat around and please don't allow anybody to bring a dog. And if there are to be any women I hope they won't come reeking of perfume. How horrible all those odors are when there are so many things that really smell good, like toast - or even manure! Ah - (a short hesitation), and very few lights. My eyes, you know, my poor eyes!”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

"Early Encounters" (p. 20)
Quoted by Vollard who came to invite Degas for dinner, that evening
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

Women, Dogs, Hope, Flowers

“Suppose you want to teach the "cat" concept to a very young child. Do you explain that a cat is a relatively small, primarily carnivorous mammal with retractible claws, a distinctive sonic output, etc.? I'll bet not. You probably show the kid a lot of different cats, saying "kitty" each time, until it gets the idea. To put it more generally, generalizations are best made by abstraction from experience. They should come one at a time; too many at once overload the circuits.”

Ralph P. Boas Jr. (1912–1992) American mathematician

[Can We Make Mathematics Intelligible?, The American Mathematical Monthly, 88, 10, 1981, 727–731, 10.2307/2321471]

Idea, Time

“It's bad to wake up and see a large cat in mid-leap from the rough vicinity of the ceiling.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[b2jl1a$e39$1@panix2.panix.com, 2003]
2000s

“I would say that the feminine values are now the values of America; sensitivity is more important than truth; feelings are more important than facts; commitment is more important than individuality; children are more important than people; safety is more important than fun. I always hear women say, "Y'know, married men live longer." Uh, yes, and an indoor cat… also… lives longer. It's a fur-ball with a broken spirit that can only look out on a world it will never enjoy, but it does, technically, live longer.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Victory Begins at Home (20 January 2004)

Women, Men, Children, People

“As late as 1959, a friend and colleague of Albert Schweitzer defended his unsterile hospital in the following terms: Now to the domestic animals at the Hospital. People have been shocked by the informality with which animals and people mix, and although it is perhaps not always defensible on hygienic grounds, the mixture adds considerably to the charm of the place. The writer was a dental surgeon from New York, who would obviously have had a fit if a goat or chicken had wandered into his New York surgery. He knew full well that at Schweitzer’s hospital “the goats, dogs and cats visit hospital wards teeming with microbial life of the most horrifying varieties,” but he defended their habitation with Africans because that was part of the culture and charm that had to be preserved!”

Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 385

Life, People, Dogs, Animals

“(Cartoon title) Don't throw that old diaphragm away! (Sylvia at typewriter) Because it can be used as: 1. Doorknob cover (no need to worry about fingerprints ever again) 2. Bathtub stopper 3) Rainhat for cat 4. Small frisbee.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 121

“When I was 6 and found out where meat came from, I was horrified. We were eating a meal of chops and three veg, and I was talking with my parents about where carrots came from; they said carrots grew in the ground. We talked about the other vegetables and got to the chops, and I asked what a chop grew on. My parents looked at each other like, "Who is going to tell her?" I felt betrayed they would make me eat an animal. After that I remember hiding my pet cat, hoping the cat wasn't going to end up on a dinner plate.”

Pippa Black (1982) actress

"One on One with Pippa Black" https://www.vegetariantimes.com/life-garden/one-on-one-with-pippa-black, interview with ' (6 July 2011).

Hope, Parent, Animals

“there is a mushroom cloud in the back garden
i did i tried to bring in the cat
but it simply came to pieces in my hand
i did i tried to whitewash the windows
but there weren't any”

Roger McGough (1937) British writer and poet

"Mother the Wardrobe is Full of Infantrymen", from The Mersey Sound (1967)

“Don't you know there is no one in the streets
and no one in the houses?There are only eyes in the windows.
If you don't have a place to sleep,
knock on a door and it will open,
open up to a certain point
and you will see that it is cold inside,
and that that house is empty
and wants nothing to do with you,
your stories mean nothing,
and if you insist on being gentle,
the dog and the cat will bite you.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

¿Sabes que en las calles no hay nadie
y adentro de las casas tampoco?Sólo hay ojos en las ventanas.
Si no tienes dònde dormir
toca una puerta y te abrirán,
te abrirán hasta cierto punto
y verás que hace frío adentro,
que aquella casa está vacía,
y no quiere nada contigo,
no valen nada tus historias,
y si insistes con tu ternura
te muerden el perro y el gato.
Soliloquio en Tinieblas (Soliloquy at Twilight) from Estravagario (Book of Vagaries) (1958).

Dogs, Sleep, Housing

“Many Christians who agree that harming a dog or cat is wrong think nothing of harming cows, pigs, chickens, fish and other creatures. We need to understand that if we’re eating meat, we are paying people to be cruel to animals. For the simple reasons that all animals are creatures beloved by God and that God created them with a capacity for pain and suffering, we should adopt a vegetarian diet.”

John Dear (1959) Catholic priest from the United States

Christianity and Vegetarianism (1990)

God, Pain, People, Dogs

“I can say this. I believe that the human mind, or even the mind of a cat, is more interesting in its complexity than an entire galaxy if it is devoid of life.”

Martin Gardner (1914–2010) recreational mathematician and philosopher

Martin Gardner, puzzle master extraordinaire http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29688355 obituary by Colm Mulcahy, BBC News Magazine, October 21, 2014

Life

“I've done you a piece of good service, Nancy," he began: then seeing me, he acknowledged my presence by a slight bow. I should have been invisible to Hatfield, or any other gentleman of those parts. "I've delivered your cat," he continued, "from the hands, or rather the gun, of Mr. Murray's gamekeeper.”

Anne Brontë book Agnes Grey

Source: Agnes Grey (1847), Ch. XII : The Shower

Parting

“What a monstrous tail our cat has got!”

Henry Carey (1687–1743) English composer and playwright

The Dragon of Wantley (1737), Act ii. Sc. 1.

“ Of all forms of symbolism, language is the most highly developed, most subtle, and most complicated. It has been pointed out that human beings, by agreement, can make anything stand for anything. Now, human beings have agreed, in the course of centuries of mutual dependency, to let the various noises that they can produce […] stand for specified happenings in their nervous systems. We call that system of agreements language. For example, we who speak English have been so trained that, when our nervous systems register the presence of a certain kind of animal, we may make the following noise: "That's a cat." Anyone hearing us expects to find that, by looking in the same direction, he will experience a similar event in his nervous system -- one that will lead him to make an almost identical noise. Again, we have been so trained that when we are conscious of wanting food, we make the noise "I'm hungry."”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), Language as Symbolism, pp. 26-27

Food, Animals, Dependency, Training

“I got the idea [for Earthlings] because I was filming some public service announcements. It was mostly domestic animals, dogs and cats, and when they were killed on the street or euthanized in the shelters, they were put into this room that resembles a large refrigerator. But when I saw them piled up in there, it suddenly made me think of meat in a refrigerator. Even though they looked nothing like meat, there was this parallel – dead animals kept in a fridge – and that made me think of cows and chickens and pigs and eggs and milk, and so on. That was the beginning of Earthlings really, the first spark of inspiration.”

Shaun Monson American filmmaker

“Exclusive: Earthlings' Shaun Monson On New Iberia Research Center And More”, interview with Ecorazzi (25 March 2009) http://www.ecorazzi.com/2009/03/25/exclusive-earthlings-shaun-monson-on-new-iberia-research-center-and-more/.

Dogs, Idea, Thinking, Animals

“Earlier fundamental work of Whitehead, Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Whorf, etc., as well as my own attempt to use this earlier thinking as an epistemological base for psychiatric theory, led to a series of generalizations: That human verbal communication can operate and always does operate at many contrasting levels of abstraction. These range in two directions from the seemingly simple denotative level (“The cat is on the mat”). One range or set of these more abstract levels includes those explicit or implicit messages where the subject of discourse is the language. We will call these metalinguistic (for example, “The verbal sound ‘cat’ stands for any member of such and such class of objects”, or “The word, ‘cat’ has no fur and cannot scratch”). The other set of levels of abstraction we will call metacommunicative (e. g., “My telling you where to ﬁnd the cat was friendly”, or “This is play”). In these, the subject of discourse is the relationship between the speakers. It will be noted that the vast majority of both metalinguistic and metacommunicative messages remain implicit; and also that, especially in the psychiatric interview, there occurs a further class of implicit messages about how metacommunicative messages of friendship and hostility are to be interpreted.”

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist

Gregory Bateson (1955) " A theory of play and fantasy http://sashabarab.com/syllabi/games_learning/bateson.pdf". In: Psychiatric research reports, 1955. pp. 177-178] as cited in: S.P. Arpaia (2011) " Paradoxes, circularity and learning processes http://www2.units.it/episteme/L&PS_Vol9No1/L&PS_Vol9No1_2011_18b_Arpaia.pdf". In: L&PS – Logic & Philosophy of Science, Vol. IX, No. 1, 2011, pp. 207-222

Friendship, Hostility, Communication, Thinking

“The bottom line is that people don't have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats… If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind.”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

Animals, 1993 May 1.
1990s

People, Dogs

“Dalissem chuckled. It felt like being grinned at by a big mountain cat—delightful for the beauty of the animal, disturbing for the possible sequel.”

Michael Shea book Nifft the Lean

Part 1, Chapter 2 (p. 27)
Nifft the Lean (1982)

Beauty, Mountain, Animals

“Whoever heard me assert that the grey cat playing just now in the yard is the same one that did jumps and tricks there five hundred years ago will think whatever he likes of me, but it is a stranger form of madness to imagine that the present-day cat is fundamentally an entirely different one.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book The World as Will and Representation

Quoted by Jorge Luis Borges in his essay "A History of Eternity"
The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)

Imagination, Thinking, Madness

“What I gotta do?
Cats don't even have a clue
Can't stand to see
Me kick a flow so unbelievably
And never gave a hand
Askin' 'bout the backup plan
Now that it's true
Forever tellin' me that you always knew”

Eamon (singer) (1984) American singer

"Controversy"
Lyrics, I Don't Want You Back (2004)

“My mother, whom I loved very much, had trouble with me. I had very good school certificates. But I tormented her with horribly stinky collections. It was not enough for me at home to have a dog, a cat, a canary, a fish, and even a white mouse, which loved to walk around the apartment, although it lived in a cage. I added the protozoa to this menagerie. Traditional definitions regarded these small organisms – such as, for example, amoebae, flagellates, sponges, algae – as single-celled. What in these asexually reproducing animals or plants could intrigue the little boy so much that he permanently endured this abomination (as the mother would say) home?! After all, neither the request nor the threat of this exceptionally tolerant woman, who carried out her home diligently on a daily basis, did not help. A trip to the ponds, or actually to the stagnant at Bonarka – where today is Mateczny Roundabout – were exciting for the little boy. And even more he enjoyed moments when he could watch for hours what was happening in aquariums, jars or cages.”

Włodzimierz Ptak (1928–2019) immunologist

Bętkowska, Teresa (August–September 2010). "Mistrz niszowej dyscypliny" http://www2.almamater.uj.edu.pl/126/17.pdf (PDF). Alma Mater (in Polish). Kraków: Jagiellonian University (126–127): pp. 41–46.

Love, School, Dogs, Home

“The rushing of his spirit from its prison-house was as rapid as a hunted cat passing over a garden fence.”

Stephen Leacock Literary Lapses

Literary Lapses (1910)

Housing

““Do your neighbors burn one another alive?” was how Fraa Orolo began his conversation with Artisan Flec.
“Do your shamans walk around on stilts?” Fraa Orolo asked, reading from a leaf that, judging by its brownness, was at least five centuries old. Then he looked up and added helpfully, “You might call them pastors or witch doctors.”
“When a child gets sick, do you pray? Sacrifice to a painted stick? Or blame it on an old lady?”
“Do you fancy you will see your dead dogs and cats in some sort of afterlife?””

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Part 1, Provener; The questionnaire, in use for 1,100 years, is used once every ten years to determine if civilization outside the monastic compound is beginning to regress.
Anathem (2008)

Dogs, Reading, Painting, Dead

“But even further from the light were the cats. Their perfection was alarming. Wrapped up in the precision and meticulousness of their bodies, they knew neither deviation nor error. They sank for a moment, far into themselves, to the bottom of their being; they froze in their soft fur and grew menacingly and ceremoniously serious, and their eyes grew as round as moons, soaking up the view into their fiery craters. But a moment later, cast out to the edge, to the surface, they yawned in their nihility, disappointed and without illusions.”

Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) Polish novelist and painter

“The Brilliant Epoch” http://www.schulzian.net/translation/sanatorium/epoch1.htm His father, Living things

Disappointment, Error, Light, Perfection

“He is like a cat. And all cats are thieves.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

Murder for Christmas (1939, Holiday for Murder, Hercule Poirot’s Christmas)

“when a fool fails he says I was unlucky, when a wise man fails he says what a fool I had been. Song "If I was a Cat" live version.”

Avner Strauss (1954) Israeli musician

2003 Blues Festival

Fools

“The cat would eate fish, and would not wet her feete.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Part I, chapter 11.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Fish

“I read all the movie reviews, especially those of Ebert, a graceful and witty prose stylist with profound erudition, whose reviews are worth reading just for themselves, whether or not I have any intention of viewing the movie … Ebert, the smart and handsome one, gave thumbs up to my first movie Garfield: The Movie], but [Richard] Roeper, the other one, gave thumbs down and was particularly unkind. He went on forever attacking Ebert for liking Garfield. This from a man with enough taste to praise Duma. How very disappointing. One of Roeper's complaints was that I was animated and all of the other characters in the movie were "real." Do you have any idea how a statement like that hurts an actor who has worked all of his life as a media cat? Yes, Richard Roeper, I was animated. Read my lips: I am a character in a comic strip.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/garfield-a-tail-of-two-kitties-2006 of Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, written in the first person as Garfield. (16 June 2006) Reviews, Three star reviews

Life, Disappointment, Idea, Reading

“Far in the stillness a cat
Languishes loudly. A cinder
Falls, and the shadows
Lurch to the leap of the flame.”

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English poet, critic and editor

Source: In Hospital (1908), p. 11

“I discovered long ago that, if you write a book about cats or dogs, everybody loves you, but if you dare to write a book about human beings, all hell breaks loose. It is impossible to write an uncensored, honest book about human behaviour without offending at least part of your audience. If you feel you have a basic truth to tell, then you must tell it and be prepared to suffer the inevitable criticisms.”

Desmond Morris (1928) English zoologist, ethologist and surrealist painter

Desmond Morris in: "The Dan Schneider Interview 8: Desmond Morris" at cosmoetica.com, first posted 2/16/08.

Love, Truth, Books, Dogs

“For the first twenty years of my life I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it's funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even make it to bed. I'd squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I'm now told that this is not called "going to sleep" but rather "passing out," a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

Life, Beer, Problem, Sleep

“He's German so he's Herr Ball. Herr Ball. His movies are so bad, cats choke when they hear his name.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)

“When all candels be out, all cats be grey,
All thingis are then of one colour, as who sey.
And this prouerbe faith, for quenching hot desyre,
Foul water as soone as fayre, will quenche hot fyre.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

When all candles are out, all cats are grey,
All things are then of one color, as who say.
And this proverb faith, for quenching hot desire,
Foul water as soon as faire, will quench hot fire.
Part I, chapter 5.
Proverbs (1546)

Faith, Water

“All of us can be influenced through psychological techniques. For example, if I say “don’t think of a black cat” what do you do? You think of a black cat because the command ‘think of a black cat’ was there in the sentence. Techniques like this can be used to influence people’s thoughts, behaviour, even their memory.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

People, Thinking, Memory

“Dogs and cats came from a common ancestor, can you explain that?… Can you explain it now, what animal you're talking about that dogs and cats came from… It was arboreal?… What do you mean by 'arboreal?”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

AronRa vs Ray Comfort (September 17th, 2012), Radio Paul's Radio Rants

Dogs, Animals

“Know you, boy, women are like cats and must explore any new place until they are satisfied. If they don’t they become weak and vain, fretful and ill”

Alice Borchardt (1939–2007) American fiction writer

Devoted

Women, Boy

“The US owes the world. The US "superpower" cannot even finance its own domestic operations, much less its gratuitous wars except via the kindness of foreigners to lend it money that cannot be repaid.The US will never repay the loans. The American economy has been devastated by offshoring, by foreign competition, and by the importation of foreigners on work visas, while it holds to a free trade ideology that benefits corporate fat cats and shareholders at the expense of American labor. The dollar is failing in its role as reserve currency and will soon be abandoned.When the dollar ceases to be the reserve currency, the US will no longer be able to pay its bills by borrowing more from foreigners.”

Paul Craig Roberts (1939) American economist

"A Bankrupt Superpower," CounterPunch (2008-03-18)

Money, War, World

“When it came to the tiger, I found that animating the movements of a large feline animal posed some difficulties, as it required precise and miniscule advancements in movement throughout its body. As well as tigers, I also studied domestic cats, and by so doing managed to achieve a combination of mannerisms represented by both. The overall impression is of latent ferocity and a lust for blood, but at the same time there are also slow, graceful movements that mask the creature's power.”

Ray Harryhausen (1920–2013) American animator

Source: An Animated Life (2003), p. 252

Study, Time, Animals

“Never trust a cat, anyway. All they’re good for is stringing tennis racquets.”

Roger Zelazny book A Night in the Lonesome October

October 6 (p. 28)
A Night in the Lonesome October (1993)

“Yet another hedge fund manager explained Icelandic banking to me this way: you have a dog, and I have a cat. We agree that each is worth a billion dollars. You sell me the dog for a billion, and I sell you the cat for a billion. Now we are no longer pet owners but Icelandic banks, with a billion dollars in new assets.”

Michael Lewis (1960) American writer

Source: Boomerang (2011), Chapter 2, p.17

Dogs, Way

“(Sylvia) A cat who’s just been told that he’ll have to eat that special canned cat food that comes from the veterinarian for the rest of his life. (Cat) Shoot me now.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, pp. 108-109

Life, Food

“As full as a piper's bag; as a tick.
As full as a toad is of poison.
As full as a jade, quoth the bride.
As gant as a greyhound.
As glad as a fowl of a fair day.
To go like a cat upon a hot bake-stone.
To go out like a candle in a snuff.
As good as George of Green.
To go like a cat upon a hot bake-stone.”

John Ray (1627–1705) British botanist

Source: English Proverbs (1670), p. 228

“…nothing short of a world state will be really effective in preventing war. As long as you rely for security on a number of national armaments you will have the difficulty as to who shall bell the cat in case of need, while you will have general staffs in all countries planning future wars. I want us to come out boldly for a real long-range policy which will envisage the abolition of the conception of the individual sovereign state. … A united navy to police the seas of the world could be attained and would incidentally bring enormous pressure to bear on Japan. The next thing would be an international air force and an international air service. … The basis of such a move would have to be a frank recognition that all states must surrender a large degree of sovereignty and that the Peace Treaties must be revised. On this basis one must then proceed to build up a world structure politically and economically. … This may sound very visionary but I am convinced that unless we see the world we want it is vain to try to build a permanent habitation for Peace and that temporary structures will catch fire very soon if we wait any longer.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Tom Attlee (1 January 1933), quoted in W. Golant, 'The Emergence of C. R. Attlee as Leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1935', The Historical Journal, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Jun., 1970), p. 323
Deputy Leader of the Opposition

War, World, Peace, Waiting

“Yesterday, I was sitting on a beanbag chair naked, eating Cheetos and… [audience cheers], I was flippin' through the television and I saw Robert Tilton. He's a televangelist from Dallas, and uh, he was staring at me. And he said this. He said, "Are you lonely?" [shrugs] Yeah. "Have you spent half your life in bars, pursuing sins of the flesh?" [Takes a sip of his drink]This guy's good! "Are you sitting in a beanbag chair, naked, eating Cheetos?" [shocked look] YES, SIR! "Do you feel the urge to get up and send me a thousand dollars?" Close! I thought he was talking about me there for a second! Apparently, I'm ain't the only cat on the block that digs Cheetos.”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

They Call Me Tater Salad

Life, Guy, Feeling, Drink

“A cat is the ideal literary companion. A wife, I am sure, cannot compare except to her disadvantage. A dog is out of the question. It may do at a butcher's – it would be out of place in a bookseller's. A cat for a bookseller is a different creature temperamentally from the same animal at a fishmonger's or a baker's. In these shops the cat is a useful animal – I suppose it is employed to eat fish entrails or to keep down rats and mice – but in my shop its function is that of a familiar. It is at once decorative – contemplative – philosophical, and it begets in me great calm and contentment.”

William Darling (politician) (1885–1962) Scottish politician

Source: The Bankrupt Bookseller (1947), p. 48

Dogs, Question, Fish, Animals

“People marvel at … things only because they rarely happen; but the causes for these are as apparent as for others … For example, at night a fearful man who sees a wolf in the fields, or a cat in his room, will immediately assert and judge that it is an enemy or a devil … because he fixes his imagination on these and fears them. And a person devout and rapt [in ecstasy] will judge that it is an angel … A vigorous imagining of a retained species, then, together with a small external appearance or with an imbalance of some internal disposition … produces marvelous appearances in healthy as well as in sick people.”

Nicole Oresme (1323–1382) French philosopher

Nicole Oresme and The Marvels of Nature, Bert Hansen's translation (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1985), p. 73.
De causis mirabilium (c. 1370)

People, Fear, Angels, Imagination

“If I had my time again, I think maybe I'd try to be a cook. I love food and am endlessly interested in recipes, weirdly enough. But now, the occupation of "cat" would probably be nearer the mark. Sleeping. Gazing into the middle distance. Occasionally making rapid movements for no real reason. I could do that.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Associated Content Interview (October 23, 2006)

Love, Food, Thinking, Sleep